The eight SIMI suspects who allegedly escaped from the Bhopal Central Prison before being gunned down used wooden logs and bed sheets to make a ladder, using which they scaled a 35-foot wall to make way out of the jail. Since this arrangement alone was apparently not enough, the undertrials also formed human pyramids to help each other climb over the walls and it is a serious lapse on the part of the jailor and other officials. Describing the structure of the jail walls, Deputy Inspector General of Prisons M.R. Patel said the prisoners first formed human pyramids to scale a 10 foot wall immediately after getting out from their cells. Iron spikes on this wall made their job easier. Thereafter, they found themselves behind a 35-foot wall, their only physical obstacle to freedom at that point. That wall is joined by a 20-foot wall that serves to separate two wards of the prison. Some of them first climbed the short wall using their ladders before hauling up their associates. Thus they made their escape route successfully only to be killed later.
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