In another twist to the Bhopal encounter case, the Madhya Pradesh Anti-Terror Chief Sanjeev Shami has told NDTV that the 8 SIMI members who were killed were unarmed.
Shami further told the channel that he believed that the police were within the law to shoot if they thought that dreaded terrorists were escaping. "The police can use maximum force even if they are not being fired upon," he is quoted as saying.
Earlier, reports had mentioned the Inspector General of Bhopal's police quoted as saying that the escapees had country-made revolvers on them and that they had utensils on them which they had used as weapons.
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A post-mortem report says that each of the men were shot-at twice by the police and some of them had bullet wounds in the back too. The men had escaped the high-security prison in Bhopal after apparently taking advantage of the lax security in place. They had also slit the throat of a security guard at the premises and were found hours later in a forest on the outskirts of the city where they were shot down.
The next day TV channels aired unverified videos which had one showing the men trying to talk to the police and another where a police official is seen shooting at a man who is already lying down on the ground.
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The videos have raised questions about the manner of the operation and a political slugfest has ensued with political parties calling for an enquiry into the incident which MP CM Shivraj Chouhan has rebuffed. Earlier, the NHRC asked the state to submit a report within six weeks regarding the incident.
