Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh on Wednesday said the SIMI activists who were gunned down in an encounter with police on October 31 after a jail-break were armed, contradicting the state ATS chief's statement that they had no weapons.
"According to the police's official report to us, the SIMI activists were armed during the encounter and they fired first," Singh told PTI.
When it was pointed out that Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Sanjeev Shami had told a TV channel that the SIMI activists were unarmed, Singh said, "I have been informed officially that they were armed."
Asked if he was going to have a word with Shami over the issue to clear the air, the minister replied in negative.
"The SIMI men were dreaded (criminals) and they fired first at the police. Police fired in defence, in which SIMI men were killed," Singh added.
"The SIMI terrorists were expert in making weapons. They slit the throat of a guard in the jail after making a knife out of a plate which they left behind," the minister said.
"They might have procured arms in the jail or outside after fleeing. All this is being thoroughly probed," Singh said.
Shami had on Wednesday said that the 8 SIMI men killed in the encounter did not have any weapons with them.
Shami’s statement was in contradiction to that of the Inspector General of Bhopal Police, Yogesh Choudhry, who claimed on Tuesday that the men had four country-made pistols and shot at the cops who confronted them six times.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state and at the Centre has also taken the line that the terrorism accused were killed because they opened fire.
But Shami also said that the police were well within the law to have shot the men dead if they thought that they were dreaded terrorists escaping.
"I stick to my stand ...I speak only the facts,” said Shami according to an NDTV report.
Post-mortem reports on Wednesday showed that the accused were shot from different directions, multiple times. Each had at least 2 bullet wounds on his body.
Three videos of the incident have gone viral on social media so far, in which the police officers are seen shooting the men who are lying dead or injured on the ground.
Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupinder Singh earlier claimed that the SIMI men were preparing for "a major terror strike". Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has urged the opposition to stop claiming human rights violations to defend "terror suspects".
However, the Congress and Opposition parties like Trinamool Congress (TMC), CPI, AIMIM and others have refused to believe the official version of the incident.
The BJP government in Madhya Pradesh has refused a formal investigation into the encounter. But Bhopal IG said on Tuesday that the CID would look into the matter.
