On the evening of February 21, 2013, P. Yadaiah Goud, a marketing executive, went to collect the monitor of his PC from a repair shop located beside Dilsukhnagar bus stop. Instead he ended up with a vertebral fracture, injuries on his left thigh and left forearm. Now paralysed from the waist down and has been unemployed ever since, Goud is among the 126 survivors, out of whom 78 sustained grave injuries, in the Dilsukhnagar twin blasts of 2013. He was lucky, 18 others were killed on that day.
The two blasts, with improvised explosive devices (IEDs), within a span of six seconds at 6:58:38 p.m. and at 6:58:44 p.m. at Dilsukhnagar changed the fate of over hundred families. It resulted in the death of 18 persons, and injured 126 others. While the first blast took place at 107 bus stop in Dilsukhnagar, the second was near A1 Mirchi Centre. Both located about 100 metres apart.
Speaking to The Hindu, the survivors of the ghastly mishap recounted the horrific day and the trauma they have to live with to this day.
A father of two, Yadaiah Goud, who was aged 40 at the time of the blast, regained consciousness at a private hospital, where the doctors removed a nail from his backbone and treated him for vertebral fracture, injuries on his limbs. “The injuries rendered me paralysed from the waist below. I cannot walk or stand at a place for a long time. I have not received any employment as promised by the then-government or when Telangana was created. They compensated the next of kin of the deceased but the survivors who are living with ailments like me need more support and help,” he said. Mr. Goud still remains unemployed.
Another survivor of the blast was Sravan, who was pursuing B Tech and was waiting for his father to pick him up from the bus stop. He sustained injuries on his head, right ear, both hands and lost the index finger on his left hand. He now works as a private employee in the city.
Srikrishna Sundara Sharma, a tax consultant, was fasting for Bheeshma Ekadashi Day on that day was standing near the bus stop to go to Amberpet when he heard a big explosion. Then he saw people running helter-skelter. Sharp objects from the blast pierced his right leg and was treated at a private hospital for a week.
Ram Murthy, who was 22, sustained moderate conductive hearing loss in both ears, a penetrating injury to right flank, right iliac crest, right thigh, right leg, left leg, left thigh, laceration on tip of tongue and lower limb and lost his lower central incisors. He was treated and discharged on March 6, 2013.
In 2016, as per the judgement copy of the case probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative Yasin Bhatkal and four other men were convicted to be ‘hanged till death’ in the first ever conviction of banned outfit’s cadres in a terror case.
A Shradhanjali Programme is planned on the 11th year anniversary at the same site in Dilsukhnagar by Syed Raheem, a survivor of twin-blast of 2007. Raheem lost an eye in the Gokul Chat blast when he went to pick up ice-cream for his daughter on August 25, 2007.
