Agencies/Hyderabad
Five men suspected of being involved in terrorist acts were killed yesterday when they allegedly attacked their police escort on way from jail to a court.
The men were being taken from Warangal jail in Telegana to a court in Hyderabad.
They requested a stop to relieve themselves and the bus halted near Jangaon about 100km northeast of Hyderabad, senior Warangal district police official B Malla Reddy said.
When one of the men’s handcuffs were removed, he tried to snatch an AK 47 rifle from a policeman. The others had also been trying to snatch weapons when policemen from inside the bus shot them dead, Reddy said.
A policeman injured in the incident later died in hiospital.
Viqaruddin Ahmed and his four associates, allegedly involved in the killing of two policemen and several other extremist activities, were killed between 10 and 10.20am.
There were 17 policemen escorting the terror suspects. The police identified them as Viquaruddin, Mohamed Zakir, Syed Amjad, Izhar Khan and Mohamed Haneef.
Haneef, an ayurvedic doctor, was from Gujarat, while the others were from Hyderabad or other parts of Telangana.
Police cordoned off the scene of the incident on Warangal-Hyderabad highway, leading to a traffic jam.
The bodies were later shifted to a hospital in Jangaon, where an autopsy was being conducted.
The accused were arrested in 2010 after a series of attacks on police in Hyderabad.
According to the police, Viqaruddin had links with various terror outfits and was involved in several incidents. He had also floated the militant outfit Tehreek Galba-e-Islam (TGI).
They were shifted to Warangal Central Jail in 2011 after they attacked a prison official in Cherlapally Jail in Hyderabad.
Viqaruddin continued picking up fights with staff in Warangal Jail. He also had a fight with policemen escorting him and other accused to the court.
Viqaruddin and his associates had attacked policemen in the old city of Hyderabad between 2008 and 2010 to avenge the police firing on people protesting after the bomb blast at the historic Mecca Masjid in 2007.
The attacks on the anniversary of the blast had kept Hyderabad police on tenterhooks for long.
Police claimed that men had also shot dead a policeman in Gujarat in 2007 while looting a bank.
The incident occurred close on the heels of a gunfight in Nalgonda district on Saturday in which two operatives of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and a policeman were killed.
The father of Viqaruddin, one of the five terror suspects gunned down by police speaks to reporters in Hyderabad yesterday.
