Readers tell us if they think the SIMI encounter was staged or not

It happened the day after Diwali. We aren't talking of the haze that's engulfed the country's national capital, in fact, the whole of North India. But the "encounter" of eight under-trials belonging to the banned group SIMI, all lodged in Bhopal Central Jail, two of them almost on the verge of a possible acquital. The eight operatives allegedly orchestrated a jailbreak but were found and neutralised within hours in an encounter executed by Madhya Pradesh police, belonging to Anti Terror Squad, Counter Terrorism Group, among other forces.

There are too many convenient coincidences in the official narrative put out by Madhya Pradesh authorities for it to hold any water. Not only are there conflicting accounts on whether or not the escapees had any fire arms on them, there's no solid narrative from the police and Bhopal Central Jail authorities as how the SIMI men managed to climb and cross the 30-foot perimeter wall surrounding the prisonhouse. Where were the other prison guards when one of them - Ramshankar - was murdered, allegedly the SIMI men?

Why weren't the CCTV cameras functioning? Why is there not a single evidence to support the MP police version of what happened? Why were all the men found together on a plateau called Laal Daant? Why did they have bullet wounds in the chest if they were trying to flee the cops? Where are the weapons that were supposedly found on the operatives?

Not only are the narratives neutralising each other instead of corroborating the accounts put forward by the state home minister and the IG, the multiple videos that have surfaced since Monday, most filmed by fellow cops ostensibly in a bid to whip up patriotic frenzy and provide ocular proof of the necessity of the encounter, have, as it were, conducted a surgical strike on the official narrative that this was indeed a genuine encounter. In the videos, the escapees are seen standing on the rock when the police fires at them.

In another video, a cop is seen pulling out a knife-like weapon from a slain escapee's body, as if he already knew where it was hidden. No forensic protocol are seen to observed by the authorities even as they take the extreme step of killing all of the eight SIMI members, without trying to catch a single one of them alive.

Not only that, Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan has come out in aggressive defence of the encounter, saying that "terrorists were eating chicken biriyani in jail", and gunning them down was justified. A number of Union ministers too have defended the encounter, with MoS home Kirren Rijiju saying that it's fashionable now to question the authorities over any pretext.

Such is the unfortunate state of affairs in the world's biggest democracy.  

But what do Indians in general think of the Bhopal encounter case? Is Madhya Pradesh "emulating the Gujarat model", as some trenchant critic of the BJP governments - both in the states and at the Centre - seem to be saying? Or is this really important an episode in the long and tenuous chapter of India's strained national security?

We opened out the debate to our readers. What they have to say would take you by surprise. Read on.

DailyO readers weigh in.

Bipin Trivedi: Congress is pushing its opinion using powerful leaders like Digvijay Singh, Salman Khurshid, Manishanker Aiyar for minor appeasement and are then back-tracking by saying it's their (the leaders's) personal opinion. We have had to release terrorists like Hafiz Sayeed against plane hijacks. Would have been better to "encounter" him and save ourselves from so many terror attacks. Such suspected terrorists should be encountered instead of bearing prison expenses on their behalf. Long list of encounters like Ishrat Jahan, Batla House and recently Bhopal Jail break 8 SIMI prisoners etc are being questioned by so-called secular leaders of various political parties who are working as terror sympathiser. It is really shocking and surprising.

Raghu Lakshminaarayanan: I don't care even if staged. They belonged to a designated banned terrorist organisation. Even if they were gate keepers or car drivers of belonging to that organisation they deserved to be killed.

Firdous Manzoor: Staged of course and they where undertrials not terrorists, and as a matter of fact, Sadhvi Prachi, Aseemanand and Purohit are proven terrorists, just because of being Modi bhakts they are enjoying five star facilities.

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