State forms judicial commission to probe SIMI encounter

To submit report in three months

State has constituted a judicial commission under chairmanship of High Court justice (retired) SK Pandey to probe into the recent incident in which Madhya Pradesh police had claimed to have killed eight escaped operatives of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (Simi) within hours of a pre-dawn jailbreak in Bhopal on October 30-31. The commission will probe both the pre-dawn jailbreak and the morning "encounter" on October 31 at manikheda village under Gunga police station area on outskirts of Bhopal. 

The commission will be headquartered at Bhopal and will submit its report in three months from publication of notification, issued today, in state gazette. 

The notification issued in this regard today has fixed point of enquiry in the incident in which eight undertrials escaped from midnight of October 30-31 and were killed in a police encounter later. State chief minister had on 3 November ordered a judicial probe into the last Monday’s events, when eight terror suspects from the Students Islamic Movement of India (Simi) escaped from a Bhopal jail only to be gunned down by police a few hours later.

The commission will probe the circumstances under which the SIMI operatives escaped from the Bhopal jail and will also probe who were responsible for the incident. It will also probe under what circumstance the encounter took place and if the police action was appropriate in view the prevalent situation at the time of encounter. 

The commission will also put recommendations and suggestions so that such incidences could be avoided. The SIMI operatives also had allegedly killed a head constable Ramashankar Yadav on duty before escaping the jail.