‘ISI agent’ held in Hyderabad

Hyderabad (The Peninsula Online) - Police claim to have foiled a conspiracy to trigger communal violence during today’s Ganesh immersion procession festival with the arrest here of a suspected agent of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

Mohammed Shakeel, 25, a resident of Saeedabad area here, reportedly confessed before police that he and his friends were planning to kill a local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader to create disturbances during the Ganesh festival. Police, announcing his arrest, claimed to have seized CDs containing provocative speeches, urging youth to take up weapons.

Police said Shakeel, a former activist of radical group Darasgah Jihad-o-Shadat (DJS), was planning to kill BJP leader Basant Kumar Yadav. Police are on the lookout for six other people allegedly involved in the conspiracy.

They also claimed to have found in Shakeel’s possession a court summons issued in 2004 in connection with communal riots cases pending against him.

The arrest came even as the city is gearing up for mammoth Ganesh idol immersion processions tomorrow.

Thousands of Ganesh idols will be immersed in Hussain Sagar Lake in the city during the annual event.

This is not the first time that such arrests were made ahead of the Ganesh immersion festival. Three years ago police claimed they had foiled a plot by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to blow up temples aimed to spark large-scale communal violence during the festival.

Thousands of policemen have been deployed in the city ahead of the immersion processions, which will see around a million people participating and bring the entire city to a standstill.

This communally sensitive city has witnessed many communal riots in the past.

However, no major violence has occurred during the processions in the last decade.