Bhopal encounter: SIMI men died due to gunshot injuries, wounds mainly above waist, says post-mortem report

Bhopal: The post-mortem report of eight undertrial SIMI activists, killed in an alleged shootout with police after a Bhopal jailbreak on Monday, was released on Wednesday.

As per the report, the eight SIMI activists died due to gunshot injuries and wounds were mainly above waist.

On Tuesday, a united opposition sought an impartial probe into the death of the SIMI activists even as the government strongly defended the deaths of the "dreaded terrorists".

Seeking a judicial probe into the police "encounter" deaths on Monday, the CPI-M, the BSP and the RJD raised doubts over the government's version about the prison escape and the subsequent killings of the SIMI activists.

The Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had earlier called for a probe, suspecting that the "encounter" may have been staged to kill the accused.

A Communist Party of India-Marxist statement said the eight men were undertrials whose guilt had not been established.

The statement asked how was it possible for these men to secure arms after escaping from the prison "while being unable to get a vehicle to make good their escape".

Hitting out at the Opposition for doing electoral politics, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said those killed were "of course dreaded terrorists who could have wreaked havoc had they succeeded in escaping".

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said the Opposition was doing "dirty politics" to secure minority vote banks.

"Patriotism is important," he said, hailing "the sacrifice" of a policeman who was allegedly killed with a sharpened spoon by the accused while breaking out from the high-security Bhopal Central Jail.

In Delhi, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting M Venkaiah Naidu slammed the Congress for being "concerned about terrorists", calling it "all cheap politics" against the national interest of the country.

The eight SIMI activists were killed on Monday on the Bhopal outskirts after police claimed they escaped from the prison by killing a police guard with a spoon and plates and forging keys out of "toothbrush and wood" to open the locks of their prison barracks.

The accused, police said, were armed when they were cornered and asked to surrender.

(With Agency inputs)