Bhopal jailbreak: Prison minister terms it small incident, Congress stages walk out
"So many jail breaks happen across the country. This jail break was not such a big issue. And importantly so because all the eight suspects who had escaped were gunned down within hours," Mehdele said.
In Short
- Mehdele was addressing a press conference at the state Vidhan Sabha today
- Congress walked out of the Vidhan Sabha after
- This jail break was not such a big issue, M4ehdele said.
According to the Madhya Pradesh Jail Minister Kusum Mehdele, the Bhopal jail break during the intervening night of October 30 and 31 in which eight SIMI activists allegedly escaped from the Bhopal Central jail was not a big deal.
"So many jail breaks happen across the country. This jail break was not such a big issue. And importantly so because all the eight suspects who had escaped were gunned down within hours," Mehdele said.
Mehdele was addressing a press conference at the state Vidhan Sabha today morning where he said that necessary steps have been taken to ensure such jail breaks do not happen in future.
Not satisfied with the minister's answer, Congress MLA Satendra Patel, pointed to the jail manual that mandates the district collector to visit a district jail once every three months and alleged that no senior official had visited the jail for at least two years before the Bhopal jail break.
CONGRESS STAGES A WALK OUT
The Congress later staged a walk out from the Vidhan Sabha on the issue.
The eight SIMI activists were gunned down about eight hours after the sensational jail break at a spot roughly around 15 km from the Bhopal Central Jail in an encounter over which many questions have been raised.
The Madhya government was forced to order a judicial enquiry headed by a retired High Court judge after many uncomfortable questions were thrown at the government. The Commission was initially supposed to give its report within three months but has now been given a six month extension after it failed to submit its findings within the stipulated time.
Several human rights organisations have called the encounter 'fake' asking how it was possible that all the SIMI suspects headed in one direction and not break into smaller groups after escaping from the Bhopal Central Jail, and how come could they cover just 15 km in around eight hours when they were running for their life.
The Bhopal police on the day of the encounter claimed that the SIMI activists were fired upon in retaliation even as MP ATS chief Sanjeev Shami immediately after the encounter announced that the eight men were unarmed.
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