The Epilogue To An Encounter

In the aftermath of the escape of eight under-trial SIMI men from the ISO-certified Bhopal Central Jail on Diwali night and their subsequent death in an "encounter" nine hours later about 16 km away from the jail, the Madhya Pradesh government has been forced to eat its words so frequently that it has ended up with lot of egg on its face.

To begin from the beginning, immediately after the "encounter", which appeared questionable from the very outset, and, staged as new facts emerged, the chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan praised the state police sky high for its valiant act of killing "terrorists", who could have "created havoc". The schedule of a grand programme organised on November 1, to mark the State Foundation Day, was altered at the last moment to accommodate felicitation of the police officers involved in the encounter. Among those feted by CM was Yogesh Choudary, IG of Bhopal zone, who was not even present at the "encounter" site. The CM announced a cash reward of Rs 40 lakh for the policemen who "killed the terrorists". The chief minister and the Home minister Bhupendra Singh made it clear that while the government would get the jailbreak probed, the encounter was 'unquestionable'. Chouhan also claimed that he had already talked to the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who had agreed for an NIA probe. Subsequently, however, the NIA apparently refused to take up the probe, forcing the government to change its stance. The DGP of the state said that the state government had merely "informed" the NIA of the incident.

Then, the holes in the encounter story began surfacing. Two video clips, apparently shot by the cops who were part of the encounter team, went viral on social media. One of them showed a policeman pumping bullets into an unarmed person lying sprawled on the ground while another showed five of the eight fugitives standing atop a hillock, with both their hands raised up — a universal sign of surrender.

While the IG of Bhopal zone claimed that the "terrorists" were armed with two country-made pistols and a knife and had fired at the police team, the chief of the ATS denied that shots were fired by anyone other than the cops. The ATS chief stood his ground in an interview with a TV channel.

The other obvious questions were: from where the fugitives got the wrist watches they were wearing and the arms they were supposedly carrying; why, even after eight hours of their escape, they were sticking together instead of dispersing and why they could cover a distance of only 16 km in this time period.

The story of their escape was even more curious. It was said that they made duplicate keys of the locks of their cells with the help of toothbrushes and by burning the rotis served to them, they used steel plates given to them for eating food to slit the throat of a jail guard and used ladders made by knotted bed-sheets to scale the 28-foot high wall of the jail. To lend credence to the theory, the CM himself visited the jail, where, it was said, a prison inmate was made to climb the wall to show that it could be done.

But even after all this, the government found itself increasingly beleaguered with the media, civil society organisations and Muslim bodies raising uncomfortable questions. "If guilty, hang them; murders not acceptable", Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind declared at a largely-attended meeting. Other Muslim organisations objected to the use of the word "terrorist" for under-trials. Then, portions of the autopsy reports of the slain men were published in the media. The reports said that most of the gunshot wounds were in the torso, that one of the men were hit on the head with a bullet and that many bodies had entry and exit gunshot wounds — all indicating not only that the police action was in gross violations of the norms which require police to shoot to disable, not to kill but also that the bullets were fired from much closer quarters than the police claimed they were.

Under fire, the government then announced that a SIT of state CID would probe the encounter. After it was discovered that a magisterial probe is mandatory in cases of encounter deaths, those too was ordered. A confused government also announced another enquiry — by a retired DGP of the state — into the jailbreak.
Then, it was pointed out that SC guidelines on encounters and custodial deaths clearly say that no out-of-turn promotions or awards should be announced for the police officers involved till their 'valour' is established after an enquiry. The government then hastily put the awards on hold.

At long last, a judicial enquiry by a SK Pande, a retired HC judge was also ordered — the fourth one in five days. The terms of reference of the enquiry do not refer to SIMI or terrorists but only to "undertrial prisoners". What proved to be the proverbial last straw was the leakage of a snatch of radio conversation between police control room and the cops at the encounter site in which things like "Sabko maro; ek bhi na bache. Saheb chahte hain ki ek bhee na bache" (Finish off all of them. Not one should survive. Saheb wants no one to survive).

Meanwhile, the nationalist-versus-seditionist narrative has been invoked to pillory those questioning the encounter. Chouhan said that the "Congress' hand is with the terrorists" and the police prevented social activists from forming a human chain in Indore to protest the encounter. 90-year-old former advocate general of the state Anand Mohan Mathur was put under house arrest and on November 7 as around 200 right-wing activists gathered at his residence and shouted slogans against him. They tried to throw stones and cow dung at the residence and blacken his face but were prevented by the police. Mathur has written a letter to the chief minister saying that the Justice SK Pande, who had been appointed as the head of the judicial commission that will probe the encounter, is a "known RSS sympathiser".