Bhopal encounter: Video shows policeman recovering knife from SIMI activist’s body

Bhopal: Police investigate the encounter site at the hillocks of Acharpura village after the STF killed 8 Students of Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) activists who escaped Central Jail killing a security guard in Bhopal on Monday. PTI Photo (PTI10_31_2016_000210B)

Eight SIMI activists were on Monday killed in an alleged encounter with police on the outskirts of the city hours after they escaped from the high-security Bhopal Central Jail killing a security guard but questions cropped up over the encounter.

Though police described the encounter as a raging gun battle, with the SIMI members instigating the gunfire, videos, purportedly from the encounter site, that have surfaced shows a policeman 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.

The National Investigation Agency(NIA) will probe the jail-break even as contradictions surfaced on the encounter. The jail superintendent was among four officials suspended by the Madhya Pradesh government.

IG Yogesh Choudhary said the fleeing SIMI activists had weapons in their possession and opened fire when confronted and the police fired in retaliation, in comments that appeared to contradict the Home Minister’s statement.