MP Home Minister claims SIMI activists were planning 'huge terror attack'

8 SIMI activists escaped from a Bhopal jail in the wee hours on Monday after killing a security guard.

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupinder Singh claimed on Tuesday evening that the 8 SIMI terrorists who were gunned down by the Special Task Force (STF) of the Madhya Pradesh police after fleeing from jail were planning to ‘carry out a huge terrorist attack’.

According to a report in NDTV, Singh said, “If such terrorists had managed to escape, it would have been a great threat to national security. The Madhya Police managed to trace and kill them in a short time.”

He also added that there was a ‘big network’ which had helped the terror accused escape.

The National Human Rights Commission has issued notices to Madhya Pradesh government, police and prison authorities over the killing.

The Commission has taken suo motu cognisance of a media report on the case and observed that it has always been \"concerned\" about deaths in police and judicial custody as well as in police action.

The NHRC has issued notices to the state's Chief Secretary, Director General of Police and the Director General and Inspector General of state prison department, and sought detailed reports in six weeks.

Eight SIMI activists pulled off a daring prison break and escaped in the wee hours on Monday after killing a security guard at the Bhopal Central Jail. Within hours, they were hunted down and killed in an alleged police encounter on the city outskirts.

The terror accused reportedly fled after scaling a 30-foot high fence using bedsheets.

Hours later, they were found in a forested village about 10 miles south of the state's capital of Bhopal.

The police claimed that though the undertrials had escaped without weapons, they had four hand-made pistols with them when confronted by the police. In the resulting ‘encounter’, it was claimed, the police shot the SIMI men dead in retaliatory fire.

But two videos of the encounter which went viral show some of the men lying on the ground while the police fire at them.

However, MoS Home Minister Kiren Rijiju has said that the police action should not be questioned \"only on the basis of a video.\"

Kusum Mehdale, the minister in charge of the state's prisons admitted that the jail break may have been \"an insider job\" and said lapses in security include CCTVs that were not working.

(This article first appeared in Deccan Chronicle)