‘Jailbreak plotted 3 months ago’

The eight Students Islamic Movement of India (Simi) operatives killed in an alleged encounter after they escaped from the city prison on October 31 had hatched the jailbreak plot three months ago, documents recovered from their cells have revealed.

Even as the search operations in the Bhopal Central Jail, where the slain Simi men were lodged, continued for the fourth day on Thursday, the police is yet to get clue about “insiders,” who may have purportedly facilitated their escape from the “ISO” certified prison. “We are still clueless about facilitators of the Bhopal jailbreak incident. However, a team of investigators have been sent to Khandwa in MP to unearth a possible connection between the jailbreak and the 2013 Khandwa prison escape by the Simi members,” a police officer told this newspaper, requesting anonymity. Meanwhile, searches in the prison cells housing Simi men have yielded two registers in which messages on the jailbreak plot have been scribbled in Hindi and English, sketches of the hillock and the adjoining cave where the eight terror suspects were killed, dry foods and cooking utensils.

The inmates of the high security jail included 21 Simi operatives, including the self-styled Simi MP chief Abu Faisal, a Naxal commander and two other hardcore criminals.

“The Simi members had created terror among the jail staff threatening to abduct their children if they resorted to routine checking of their cells. Jail officials used to advise the guards not to provoke the terrorists for fear of reprisals by them,” a police officer, unwilling to be quoted, told this newspaper.