Eight suspected SIMI men killed after escaping from Bhopal jail

Police killed eight suspected members of the banned Students Islamic Federation of India (SIMI) in Madhya Pradesh in an encounter on Monday, hours after they escaped from a high-security jail in Bhopal.

Bhopal inspector general of police Yogesh Chaudhury told that the operation took place at Acharpura village, about five kilometers north-west of Bhopal Central Jail."We acted on intelligence and located the inmates. They fired on us and all eight were killed in crossfire,” he said.

The eight men had broken out of jail around 2am on Monday after killing one



guard and holding another hostage. This was the second such jailbreak by members of the banned outfit in three years.

“Details of the encounter will be released soon. The way they killed a guard and injured another, they were probably plotting a terror attack,” said state home minister Bhupendra Singh.“Operation started at 4 am and we managed to gun them down at 11 am.”

Police told  that the jail breakers were accused in cases that included the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts, and explosions in Karimnagar, Pune and Chennai two years ago.