Eight undertrial prisoners of Bhopal Central Jail were killed in a encounter on 31st October 2016. They had allegedly escaped from the high security prison in the wee hours of the night. The prisoners were suspected terrorists of the Students' Islamic Movement of India.
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Police version
According to the Madhya Pradesh police, the undertrials had escaped from the prison using bed sheets and wooden logs, after allegedly killing a jail security guard using spoons and plates.
Staged encounter
Various proofs (audio tapes and videos) have emerged that the encounter killings could be staged. The leaked police control room audio clips clearly indicates that the operation was staged and there were orders from the top to kill all the prisoners. According to the tape police officers were angry over the killing of one of their officer during the prison break. The tape also suggests that police was also concerned over repeated prison break of the respective prisoners. During their last prison break they killed a jail guard and they repeated the same plan again. In a low quality video, it was shown that a police officer shot a terrorist when he was lying half dead along with his mates. The senior officials also praised the police guards for the encounter.
Responses
The kin of the killed prisoners have come out accusing the police of staging the encounter. Zulekha Bee accused that her brother was already threatened to be killed in a fake encounter by the jail authorities.
Pervez Alam, the lawyer of seven killed prisoners, said that "It is a fake encounter, a cold-blooded murder. It was pre-planned murder and I believe they did not escape the jail, but they were made to flee by the police".
The Shiv Sena mouth piece 'Saamna' argued that the killing were justified even if it was 'staged encounter'.