8 SIMI activists killed in encounter hours after escaping Bhopal jail
Bhopal: Hours after escaping Bhopal Central Jail, eight activists of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) were killed in an encounter in Eintkhedi village on Monday.
“All 8 SIMI activists, who escaped from jail, killed in police encounter at Malikheda near Bhopal,” Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh confirmed.
The eight activists had escaped from the Central Jail by slitting the throat of a guard with steel plates and scaling the prison wall with the help of bed sheets, following which some officials responsible for jail security were suspended.
State government had also announced a reward of Rs 5 lakh each on the heads of the activists.
They were identified as — Amzad, Zakir Hussain Sadiq, Mohammad Salik, Mujeeb Shaikh, Mehbood Guddu, Mohammad Kalid Ahmed, Aqeel and Majid, an official said.
This was the second major jail break by operatives of banned SIMI in three years after the sensational escape by seven members of the group from a jail in Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh in 2013.
The central security agencies were particularly anxious as four of the seven SIMI activities, who escaped from a jail in Khandwa October 1, 2013, could be arrested only after three years and during the period of their hiding, the militants were involved in multiple incidents of terror and a bank robbery.
While in hiding, the SIMI men were allegedly involved in terror activities in several states including Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. SIMI was banned by the government in 2001.
