SIMI encounter: Doubts after video surfaces

Bhopal: A video purportedly showing the alleged encounter in which eight undertrial Student Islamic Movement of India (Simi) operatives were gunned down after they escaped from Bhopal Central Jail on Monday has gone viral on social media, raising questions on the operation.

The video showed a jawan opening fire on one of the eight terror suspects from close range as he lay motionless on the ground during the encounter.

The video clip has sparked outrage among civil rights activists who have dubbed the shooting of the Simi activist, who in that condition posed no threat to the security personnel, as “deplorable”.

“It is a case of blatant human rights violation. Action should be taken against the erring security personnel if the video is authentic,” said Mr Naresh Choubey, a civil rights activist.

However, there has been no word from the police department on the authenticity of the video. Meanwhile, the entire incident of jailbreak and subsequent killing of the eight escapees have come under a cloud of suspicion with several loose ends emerging.

Questions have been raised as to how the under-trial prisoners scaled the 32-ft high jail boundary wall. “At least three of the slain undertrials were not physically capable of scaling such a high wall. It might be an inside job to facilitate their escape,” Mr Pervez Alam, counsel of the slain terror suspects, told reporters here.

Suspecting a nexus between the slain terror suspects and jail officials, the Opposition Congress has demanded a probe by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court into the jailbreak and subsequent encounter killings.