This refers to your report “Jail break was a set-up, says lawyer for SIMI men, demands CBI Probe” (November 3).The Bhopal jailbreak was the second such incident which occurred in the last three years. A similar incident had occurred in 2013, when seven SIMI members had managed to escape from a jail in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh. The Bhopal Central Jail, one of the safest prisons in MP which is a well-guarded facility for under trials, whose safety and security are the constitutionally-ordained responsibility of the state. Police killing cannot be justified until full details of the incident are investigated. It is more important to know how the security could be so lax that eight prisoners could escape from jail after killing a cop. The police have acted quickly and decisively after their failure to prevent their escape. Fortunately, after initial reluctance to discuss lapse and insider role in the jail break incident the Home and Jail Minister have admitted to certain lapses on the part of jail authorities. The killing of the SIMI activists exposes the hideous face of a dangerous blend of a subversive ideology with criminalised and inefficient governance.
Vinod C. Dixit
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
