Hyderabad: Families of victims and survivors of the 2007 Gokul Chat explosion were arrested at Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s camp office on Thursday.
“There was no rioting, nor were we endangering the CM’s security or disrupting any kind of peace.

We, a group of seven members, wanted only to give a representation to the Chief Minister and were holding placards to pass on the information to the leader. Even before reaching the CM’s camp office, we were thrown into a lorry showing arrest,” said Joshi Narasimha Sharma, who lost his daughter in the blast.

Mr Joshi, a resident of Malakpet, had lost his daughter Pratyusha Joshi, a Final Year engineering student. “The Central government had promised Rs 3 lakh as ex gratia which hasn’t been given till now. We had even been promised by YSR that houses would be allotted under the Rajiv Swagruha scheme and health cards would be given to all survivors, but nothing has happened,” Mr Joshi added.

Among the arrested was 62-year-old Mr Syed Raheem, a survivor of the blast who is still undergoing treatment for his injuries. “I lost an eye in the blast, and another one is losing its sight; I still got pieces of iron in my brain. I have spent Rs 20 lakh till now for treatment, and what I got was Rs 10,000 as ex gratia out of Rs 20,000 promised, which my family is not aware how it got deducted,” Mr Raheem added.

“I am not able to work, I have two daughters and a son; and with financial problems, I am not even able to get them married. Life is anyways unfair to us, so is the government,” added Mr Raheem.