Eight Islamist prisoners shot dead after failed jailbreak in India
Eight suspected Islamists were shot dead by police on Monday after they escaped from a high security jail in India by slitting the throat of a prison guard, an official said.
They were unarmed but attempted to attack the police with stones. We had to shoot them
The members of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) had staged an overnight breakout from the prison in Bhopal by attacking a warder in their cell with sharpened prison-issue steel plates.
They then managed to scale several walls inside the prison by tying together bedsheets.
Police said they had been later cornered on the outskirts of the city in the central state of Madhya Pradesh but resisted efforts to take them back into custody.
“We asked them to surrender but they tried to break the police cordon,” Yogesh Choudhary, Bhopal’s inspector general of police, said. “They were unarmed but attempted to attack the police with stones. We had to shoot them,” Choudhary added.
The prisoners had managed to make their way by foot to a village about 15km south of the centre of the city, despite a massive search operation.
