Devotees pass through metal detectors at the Mecca Masjid entrance on Thursday. (PTI)

Hyderabad, May 24: Closed-circuit television sets, mounted police, anti-riot squads and metal detectors — Hyderabad police have left nothing to chance at Mecca Masjid. Tomorrow is the first Friday after the May 18 explosions.

City police commissioner Balwinder Singh and minorities welfare minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir visited the mosque today to oversee preparations for tomorrow’s prayer meeting. “We have made security arrangements to monitor 10,000 worshippers,” Singh said.

The security arrangements have cost Rs 30 lakh. The money has been spent on 21 CCTVs, six metal detectors at entry points, six hand-held detectors and over two dozen policemen in mufti inside the mosque. “We have information that militants might try to disrupt peace.”

Curbs on gatherings under Section 144 and a ban on pillion riding at night in the old city, the area around the mosque, are already in force. Mobiles cannot be carried into the mosque till Sunday.

“We have directed cinema halls, shopping malls, bus stands and railway stations, banks and post offices to put up closed-circuit TVs to monitor visitors,” Singh said. Shabbir said religious and community leaders have been consulted on the security drill. “The clerics have been telling worshippers about the ban on mobiles at the prayers,” he said.

The government has announced a reward of Rs 5 lakh for information on the militants who planted last week’s bombs. A team, headed by joint commissioner Harish Kumar Gupta, is probing the blast and the police firing.

CBI probe

The state government today sought a CBI inquiry into the explosions. Chief minister Y.S.R. Reddy wrote to Union home minister Shivraj Patil making the request.