The judicial commission of inquiry has given a clean chit to the Madhya Pradesh police and the Anti-Terrorists Squad in the incident where eight alleged SIMI operatives were gunned down after fleeing from the Bhopal Central jail.
The report has been submitted to the General Administration Department (GAD), which is likely to table it in the Vidhan Sabha in the winter session.
The encounter had taken place near Eitkhedi village, around 12 km from the State capital on October 31, 2016.
According to this report, the document prepared by the panel headed by Justice (retired) SK Pandey has justified the police action, given the situation that arose following the jailbreak. The commission of inquiry had been instituted on November 7 under retired High Court Judge Pandey.
The commission had been given five terms of reference viz the sequence of events leading to the jail break, fixing responsibility for the jail break, measures to prevent jail breaks in future, sequence of events that led to the killing of the operatives and any other related issue the commission deems fit to look into.
Deputy Secretary to the Commission JN Tiwari said that the report of the commission has been submitted on August 24. The commission has looked into all terms of reference of the inquiry. The contents of the report cannot be made public till it is tabled in the Vidhan Sabha.
Sources said that the report approved the police theory, referring to the statements recorded by the villagers, that fugitive prisoners were armed and cops had asked them to surrender. But they opened fire on the police party that had surrounded them on the hilltop.
The commission’s report also said that the SIMI suspects had made a rope with bedsheets and used it to scale and jump the jail wall.