Mamata Banerjee raises questions on ‘dubious’ Bhopal encounter
BHOPAL/KOLKATA: The war of words over the killing of eight SIMI activists in Bhopal after the jail-break escalated on Wednesday with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleging “political vendetta” and that many questions remained unanswered while the BJP hit back at Congress.
The lawyer representing the families of the eight activists, meanwhile, claimed that all the deceased sustained gun shots in the head and chest above the waist in the alleged police encounter on Monday, hours after they escaped from the Bhopal Central Jail.
“They were fired upon from the front and all of them sustained injuries in their head and chest above the waist,” lawyer Parvez Alam said claiming that he has seen the post-mortem report of the deceased. Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief, said her party did not agree with the “so-called encounter theory”.
“We do not agree with the so-called encounter theory. Many unanswered questions arise in the minds of the people,” Banerjee said in a tweet. “This is all happening in the name of political vendetta. Issues like these make me deeply concerned about national integrity & unity.” The eight SIMI members gunned down by police in Madhya Pradesh were not armed, the state's anti-terror squad chief reiterated on Wednesday, punching fresh holes in the government's claims the radical Islamists were killed when they fired at security personnel.
The assertion by ATS chief Sanjeev Shami, who was part of the operation against the SIMI members, will bolster allegations that police had staged the encounter on the outskirts of Bhopal.
Shami purportedly made the statement to a television channel, a day after Madhya Pradesh home minister Bhupendra Singh gave a clean chit to police saying “there was no need to probe” the encounter. Later, the government asked the crime investigation department, part of the state police, to probe the jailbreak.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan visited the Bhopal Central Jail, on Wednesday, to take stock of security situation after Bhopal jailbreak. On Tuesday, he had also arrived at the residence of Ramashankar Yadav, the head constable who was killed by the SIMI terrorists.
On the occasion, CM broke his silence and said-”some political leaders cannot see the martyrdom of our jawans” and added “He (Ramashankar Yadav) sacrificed his life fighting against terrorists, came here to pay my last tributes to him”. “Some people are doing politics for vote bank on this matter which is condemnable, one must refrain from doing these things”, he added.
At a press conference in Hyderabad, BJP national secretary Siddharth Nath Singh took on Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh for raising questions about the genuineness of the alleged police encounter.
BHOPAL: Batting for fasttrack courts to try terror cases, MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who has vehemently defended police role in the killing of eight SIMI activists in an alleged encounter, has said the accused stay in jail for years before they are sentenced and "keep eating chicken biryani".
"It takes years to sentence them. They keep eating chicken biryani (in jail)... they escape and indulge in more crimes and attacks .... If we can have fast track courts for corruption cases, why can't we have fast track courts for sentencing terrorists?," Chouhan said addressing a function on Tuesday.
Chouhan on Wednesday inspected the Central Jail from where eight SIMI activists escaped after killing a constable and were later gunned down by police on Monday. The opposition and families of the victims have questioned the police version.
The Chief Minister was apprised of the security arrangements and he instructed the authorities to further tighten it.
The CM was accompanied by Chief Secretary B P Singh, DGP Shukla and MP Jail Director General Sanjay Choudhary.
Chouhan had on Tuesday slammed the "dirty politics" being played over the killing of eight SIMI operatives by police and said the slain men were "dreaded terrorists" who could have wreaked devastation.
Speaking to reporters after paying tributes to Head Constable Ramashankar Yadav, who was killed by the activists while escaping from the Bhopal Central Jail yesterday, Chouhan had said he was pained to see that certain politicians were making a "hue and cry over the terrorists but not saying a word of solace for the martyred policemen."