Retired HC judge to probe Bhopal jailbreak, encounter

The Madhya Pradesh government on Monday issued a notification appointing retired high court judge S K Pandey to probe the daring jailbreak by eight Students’ Islamic Movement of India activists and their alleged encounter killings.

The alleged encounter is mired in controversy as doubts are being raised about its genuineness by the opposition Congress and other parties amid surfacing of a video clip and audio tapes that reportedly raised a question over the police version of the incident.

‘The single-member commission has been mandated to complete the probe within three months and submit its report to the state government,’ the notification stated.

The Pandey panel has been directed to probe the ‘circumstances in which the SIMI members escaped from the prison and the officials responsible for it’.

‘How and under what circumstances the encounter took place at Manikheda village under Gunga Police Station limits on the outskirts of Bhopal in which all eight prisoners were killed...Whether the action taken by the police is justified under prevailing circumstances,’ the notification asked.

It also asked the commission to recommend steps to be taken to prevent recurrence of such incidents (escaping of prisoners) and any other suggestions it deemed appropriate.

The eight SIMI under-trials had pulled off an audacious escape from the high-security Central Jail on the intervening night of October 30-31 after killing a guard, before they were gunned down in an alleged encounter by police on the outskirts of city on the morning of October 31.

Before ordering the probe by the Pandey panel, the government had announced a probe by a Special Investigation Team comprising Crime Investigation Department officers into the encounter and a separate investigation by former Director General of Police Nandan Dubey into the jailbreak but Congress and other opposition parties had been pressing for a judicial probe.