Yogesh Chowdhary, IG, MP Police, in a media briefing on Monday said that the eight suspected SIMI members had escaped from Bhopal jail around 2 to 3am in the night after killing Head Constable Ramashankar Yadav.
He said that the authorities received information of the location of the suspects around 10am on Monday, after which teams were dispatched to nab them.
He further added that a joint team of the Bhopal police, and the Special Task Force engaged the suspects and retaliated with fire after being attacked by the suspects.
Three police officers were injured by sharp weapons in the encounter. The police fired 45-46 rounds while four firearms and three sharp weapons were recovered from the eight SIMI terrorists... No mobile phones were found on the suspects. It remains a mystery as to how they communicated with each other.Yogesh Yadav, IG, MP Police
Responding to questions on the videos being shown on media channels that hint at the encounter being staged, Yadav assured that the police will look into veracity of the videos and inform the media of any new updates. Although, he said that initial findings suggest that the encounter was genuine.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minsiter Shivraj Singh Chouhan has announced Rs 10 lakh as compensation to the family of Head Constable Ramashankar Yadav who allegedly died at the hands of the terror suspects last night.
Four of Eight SIMI Activists Learnt Bomb Making in UP
Four of the eight SIMI activists, who were killed in an encounter near Bhopal on Monday after breaking out of jail, had reportedly learned bomb-making in Uttar Pradesh’s Bijnor and had survived an accidental explosion in 2014.
Investigations into the 2014 incident showed that the SIMI activists were trying to make a bomb with matchstick heads when the explosion occurred.
Two of the activists involved in the 2014 bomb blast, Aslam and Ejaz, were killed in an encounter in Telangana in 2015, while Zakir, Amzad, Salik and Mehboob were killed in Monday’s encounter.
The encounter and the jailbreak case has now been handed over to the National Investigation Agency.
Congress MP Jyotiraditya Scindia said:
This is not the first time we are hearing this, this has happened before in Khandwa as well. Surprising that time and again such incidents are happening in MP. These aren’t anti-social elements, these are anti-national elements.
Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh said about the encounter:
This is a huge victory for our forces, I congratulate MP police. They had no other option than to shoot them. Further details will be available as soon as investigation is underway.
The members of the banned organisation escaped from the Bhopal Central Jail after killing a security guard and scaling the prison wall using bedsheets. They also injured two policemen.
Bhopal Prison Minister Kusum Mehdele also met the slain security guard's family.
An ex-gratia amount of Rs 50,000 has been promised to Yadav’s family along with a job for a family member in place of Yadav.
The authorities had announced Rs 5 lakh per prisoner as reward for giving any information.
According to sources, early in the morning at around 2 to 3am, when there was a change of guard at the prison, the SIMI members, who were incarcerated in B BLOCK of the jail, broke out of the barrack and killed head constable Ramesh Shankar.
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Eight SIMI activists escaped around 2-3 am by killing a jail security guard.Raman Singh, DIG Bhopal
The head constable’s throat was slit using steel plate and glass as weapons. Following this, they scaled the wall using bedsheets. Around 60-70 percent of jail staff was on holiday. However, the DG, jail, did not rule out an inside job.
The prisoners were identified as Amzad, Zakir Hussain Sadiq, Mohammad Salik, Mujeeb Shaikh, Mehbood Guddu, Mohammad Kalid Ahmed, Aqeel and Majid, an official said.
Another official added:
The inmates made a rope with the help of bedsheets to jump over the walls. We have launched combing operations.Arvind Saxena, SP Bhopal
Following the escape, five jail officials were suspended, said MP Home Minister Bhupendra Singh.
After the encounter, speaking to CNN-News18, Chouhan said:
We got the location after they escaped, operations started at 4 am under the guidance of the Chief Minister. We surrounded and killed them... They had made knives out of plates and spoons they get in the jail. They first killed one person in the jail and later attacked the police officials again.
Even as charges that the encounter was fake is flying thick and fast, autopsy on the eight bodies will ascertain whether the killing involved foul play on the part of the Madhya Pradesh police.
A "fair" post-mortem examination will involve finding out the nature of the bullet injuries - whether they were contact wounds and the distance
from which the bullets were fired - that caused the fatalities.
Besides, the MP police will have to have ballistic tests performed on the bullets that hit the SIMI activists.
Did They or Did They Not Have Firearms? Inconsistencies in Reports
According to the Home Minister, the prisoners were only armed with utensils sharpened to murder a jail official. He added that they later attacked two police officials during the encounter.
However, Bhopal police IG Yogesh Chaudhary said that the escaped prisoners fired at the police and were killed in the consequent “cross-fire”. However, it remains unclear at this point how the prisoners managed to arm themselves.
Speaking to The Quint, Yogesh Chaudhary, IG Bhopal, said:
SIMI suspects fired on them (police), they (suspects) were armed. Now it is a matter of investigation from where did they get the weapons.Yogesh Chaudhary, IG Bhopal
MP CM Calls Suspects ‘Terrorists’ in Press Conference
The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan addressed a press conference on Monday afternoon and referred to the neutralised prisoners as “terrorists”.
Locals gave us information about the terrorists, based on which our police managed to figure out their location and they were killed in the crossfire. The entire state gave a sigh of relief.Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Chief Minister, Madhya Pradesh
Chauhan also spoke about an NIA probe.
I spoke to Home Minister Rajnath Singh, I spoke about how NIA should carry out the investigation in the matter. This is a serious matter therefore investigation will take place, further action will be taken based on the findings.Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Chief Minister, Madhya Pradesh
Before the encounter, Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoken with Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and asked for a detailed report on the fleeing of SIMI activists.
Sanjay Choudhary, Director General of Bhopal Central Jail, added:
ADG Jail has been directed to probe security lapses. Security has been increased for other prisoners now.Sanjay Choudhary, Bhopal Central Jail
This was followed by CM Chouhan calling a high-level meeting, following which he said:
Making all efforts to nab the SIMI terrorists, four jail officials have been suspended for lapses.
Bhupendra Singh had commented, drawing attention to the negligence of the administration:
We will arrest them soon. The jail administration’s negligence is responsible for this. We have issued an alert in the entire state.Bhupendra Singh, MP Home Minister
Congress leader Kamalnath also spoke about the issue and said:
Now we cant get any info as all of them died, there should be a judicial probe to know how they escaped.
The flaws in the jail administration were further emphasised as number of trained staff in the Madhya Pradesh jail was a mere 18 percent. Also, there are about 28 percent vacancies in jail cadre staff.
(With inputs from PTI, media reports.)
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