3 SIMI men had looted Telangana bank
Two of their fellow Simi members had been killed by the Telangana state police in Jankipuram.
Hyderabad: Three of the Simi men who were killed in the Bhopal encounter on Monday were involved in the Karimnagar Choppadandi State Bank of India robbery in February, 2014.
The suspects, Zakir Hussain, Amjad Alias Dawood, and Shaik Mohammad alias Guddu, had escaped in 2013 from the Khandwa jail of Madhya Pradesh but were re-arrested in 2015.
Two of their fellow Simi members had been killed by the Telangana state police in Jankipuram, Nalgonda, in April last year during a gun battle. According to senior officials from Karimnagar district police, three of the four involved in the Choppadandi robbery were inmates at the Bhopal prison.
Looted money was used for terror
On the morning of February 1, 2014, four pistol-wielding men had confined the branch manager in a room and looted Rs 46 lakh cash before fleeing from the spot.
The National Investigation Agency had later alleged that the money was used for terrorist activities. Months after the bank robbery, two of the suspects, Ajazuddin and Aslam, were traced in Suryapet.
However, they had escaped after opened fire and killing two police officers. Two days later, they were killed by the police at Jankipuram.
Zakir Hussain, Amjad and Shaik Mohammad continued to be fugitives, giving chase to the police. They were allegedly involved in terror activities in several states including Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh before being arrested and lodged in Bhopal Central Prison.