Bhopal jail break has exposed shoddy police work

The killing of eight alleged Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) "terrorists" within nine hours of their daring jail break in Bhopal has brought the mindset of the Madhya Pradesh Police into sharp focus.

The police like a political outfit is trying to justify its action on hypothetical arguments based on the presumption that the now dead SIMI activists could have wreaked havoc had they stayed alive.

This presumption is based on the terror and murder charges these men were facing. Surprisingly, they were just undertrials. It's not my case that these men were innocent but the fact remains that our criminal-justice edifice is based on the "innocent till proven guilty" premise.

Also, the history of Indian terror investigations has little to offer in terms of inspiring confidence. How innocents were framed and how suspects were let off in many such investigations, right from Malegaon to Samjhauta blasts, is well documented.

It is also a fact that head constable Rama Shankar Yadav was killed during the same jail-break. The killers of Yadav, whosoever they are, must be taken to the gallows by something which is called the due process of law.

The police and the Madhya Pradesh government have not ruled out an insider's role in helping the SIMI activists escape the highly fortified jail.

Assuming that the undertrials killed Yadav, even though the CCTV cameras that could have provided clinching evidence were not working, as accepted by Madhya Pradesh jail minister Kusum Mehdele, is this alleged "insider" not equally culpable of murder?

Now if sure death at point-blank range is the punishment for SIMI activists, will the state police gun down this insider once he or she is found?  

Conflicting statements made by senior MP police officers on the weapons that the SIMI activists allegedly carried at the time of the encounter have further complicated matters.

ATS chief Sanjeev Sami immediately after the encounter said they were not carrying weapons but by evening on the same day, IG of Bhopal Yogesh Chaudhary said they did carry weapons and the police resorted to retaliatory fire.

The postmortem report is also out. All eight were killed by gunshots. They took 25 bullets in total. One in the head, one in the lower thigh and 23 in the chest and abdomen.  

This speaks a lot about the sharpness of the police gunners but the videos of the encounter recorded by eyewitnesses also speak about the range from which these shots were fired.

Also, the SIMI activists had a previous experience of jail-break. In 2013, when walls of the Khandwa jail were scaled, they split into small groups to evade police action but this time around they decided to stay together for whatever reasons. The consequences of course were disastrous for them.

The intention is not to question the valour of the MP police force but not very long ago, family members of police officers and personnel in Balaghat sought protection from the RSS and gau rakshaks after an attempt-to-murder case was registered against the men in khaki for allegedly torturing an RSS pracharak, Suresh Yadav, in custody on September 25.

The alleged police action against the RSS pracharak was for trying to inflame communal passions through a social media post. 

Perhaps it's time for the police leadership to sit back and do a rethink, and restrain from issuing "desh bhakti" certificates. 

Also read: SIMI encounter: Do Muslim lives matter?

Also read: 8 questions as disturbing as Bhopal 'encounter' images of 8 SIMI 'terrorists'