Bhopal jail break & encounter: Shivraj Singh Chouhan orders judicial probe

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has ordered a judicial probe into the sensational jail-break by eight SIMI activists from the Bhopal central prison and their alleged encounter.

The judicial probe will be conducted by retired High Court Judge Justice S K Pandey, an official release issued late last night here stated.

"Justice Pandey will probe all aspects related to how SIMI activists escaped from the high security jail and the encounter that took place after that," it said.

A PIL was also filed in the Madhya Pradesh High Court yesterday on the issue demanding judicial probe into the incident.

The under-trial activists of the outlawed SIMI escaped from the central jail here on the intervening night of October 30-31 and were subsequently killed in an encounter on the outskirts of the city on October 31.

Before escaping from the jail, the SIMI activists also killed a head constable Ramashankar Yadav.

Since the encounter took place, conflicting versions from police and state Home Minister surfaced, leading to allegations that it might be fake.

A controversy also raged over the police action following the daring pre-dawn jail-break, after TV channels showed footage purportedly from the encounter site in which a policeman is seen pumping bullets into a man from close range after some unidentified person takes out what appears to be a knife said to be in a plastic cover and places it back.