Scapegoat, cries axed jail top cop - Security not my charge: Officer

Police and bystanders gather at the site where the Simi operatives were 

killed by the special task force personnel near Bhopal on Monday. (AFP)

RASHEED KIDWAI, TT, Bhopal, Nov. 1: An IPS officer removed hours after the Bhopal jailbreak by terror undertrials cried foul today, claiming he had been made a "scapegoat" despite three of his alerts having gone unheeded and his not being involved with day-to-day prison security.

"I have been made a scapegoat," Sushovan Banerjee, the Madhya Pradesh jail additional director-general, told The Telegraph today as the clamour for a CBI probe grew louder. "Technically speaking, we look after jail administration. We are not even responsible for day-to-day jail security."

A senior police officer with over 25 years of experience, Banerjee received the news that chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had shunted him out soon after eight operatives of the banned Students' Islamic Movement of India (Simi) escaped from Bhopal Central Jail before dawn yesterday and got killed in a gunfight with police hours later.

Banerjee, who was attached to police headquarters, told this newspaper he had sent three circulars on October 3, 4 and 7 to the jail and the government departments concerned, issuing an alert. In one of the circulars, he had underscored the presence of 29 Simi operatives in Bhopal and asked authorities to take special note.

In another circular, he had listed 20 "Dos and Don'ts", among which were requests to security personnel to remove from the jail premises pieces of wood, iron, used bed sheets etc that inmates could get access to. None of his recommendations was accepted or implemented.

Expressing surprise at his removal, Banerjee said although he had been looking after jail administration, the prison manual placed the onus for security on the district collector and the district police chief.

For instance, the manual stipulates that every month, the district collector should visit the jail with district police officers to review security-related issues. Bhopal Central Jail has not seen such a visit in years.

Banerjee said he would take up the issue of his removal with the state administration. "I am guided by rules, regulations and probity, therefore I will not say much," said the cricket and film enthusiast, who has done short roles in Hindi movies such as Diwangi, Fida, Black Friday, Bose: The Forgotten Hero, and the Malayalam film, Wanted.

Banerjee declined comment on how the Simi operatives could have pulled off the jailbreak. He denied a suggestion that prison guards of a particular community had been discouraged from taking postings near cells of Simi undertrials.

Sources said there had been serious "lapses" in the high-security prison, one being that surveillance cameras on the premises had not been working. Eyebrows have also been raised at the Bhopal police claim that the Simi undertrials had made duplicate keys to their cell locks from twigs used to clean the teeth and the tongue.

These twigs, called Miswak twigs, come from the Salvadora Persica tree, also known as the arak or peelu tree. They are used by many devout Muslims to clean their teeth before offering namaz.

Lawyer Parvez Alam, who has been representing the eight Simi operatives, said he did not believe that jail CCTV cameras had not been working. He has demanded the physical safety of and medical check-ups for the remaining 21 Simi operatives in the jail.

"I do not buy the police's explanation that the CCTV cameras were not functioning the night when a brawl took place between a jail warden, Rama Shankar, and some undertrials," Alam said.

He claimed that relatives of some of the killed Simi operatives were discouraged from leaving their houses in Khandwa and Ujjain yesterday, hours before the gunfight with the police.

"I am going to move Madhya Pradesh High Court tomorrow, seeking a CBI probe into the encounter. The families of the deceased have come to me and are weeping inconsolably for justice. We are going to move the high court for a CBI probe into the entire incident," he said.

Five of the eight Simi operatives were buried at a graveyard in Khandwa district tonight. Of the remaining three, one was buried in Bhopal and the bodies of two sent to their homes in Ujjain and Ahmedabad.

Constable Chandan Ahirwar today recounted how the Simi undertrials had escaped from jail. He claimed he saw prison guard Rama Shankar Yadav die after they slit his throat with a sharpened steel plate. "We were on the rounds together in B and C blocks of Bhopal Central Jail. They kidnapped us both," Ahirwar said, his voice choking. He said Yadav put up a brave fight although he was unarmed. Ahirwar claimed he was tied up and dumped in a cell.

For the second day in a row, the state government spoke in different voices over a judicial probe. Home minister Bhupendra Singh today said there was no need for any investigation, while the state's police chief Rishi Kumar Shukla said the CID would conduct the probe.

Kusum Mehdale, the state minister looking after the jail department, admitted that security "lapses" in the prison had facilitated the jailbreak. "You should praise us for killing the accused even though they escaped... they were stopped from carrying out more dangerous acts," she said.

A lavish programme was organised today at the Lal Parade Ground in Bhopal to mark Madhya Pradesh's 61st statehood anniversary. There were performances by playback singers Hariharan and Sunidhi Chauhan but attendance was thin. Chief minister Chouhan appeared subdued.