“The cells have nearly two feet thick walls and the lock holder is further one foot inside the wall in a socket. So the gates are installed in such a fashion that the lock and the holder are 2.5 feet away. So even if anyone is given the key, he will not be able to open the gate as his hand will not reach the lock,” Khalil said.
Bhopal: An ex- prisoner proclaimed that Bhopal jail cannot be unlocked from inside.
Though the police claims that the prisoners had unlocked the cell from inside and escaped from the jail through makeshift keys, ex prisoners disclosure definitely ads up to the list of mysterious points and the emergence of several video and audio clips that seem to cast doubts over the claims made by Indian police.
There are series of mysterious points, nation has been predicting since eight SIMI activists reportedly escaped hours before being gunned down in an encounter late last month.
Mohammed Khalil, 40, is the nephew of Mohammed Aqeel Khilji, one of the eight SIMI activists killed on October 31. Khalil said he was imprisoned in the same barracks of the jail for five months between October 2013 and March 2014.
“I was in B block, A sector where the SIMI activists were lodged before they reportedly escaped,” Khalil said.
“The cells have nearly two feet thick walls and the lock holder is further one foot inside the wall in a socket. So the gates are installed in such a fashion that the lock and the holder are 2.5 feet away. So even if anyone is given the key, he will not be able to open the gate as his hand will not reach the lock,” Khalil said.
He insisted to re-affirm his genuiness of his statements by visiting the jail, “You can visit the jail and check it yourself,” he said.
Sanjay Choudhary, the director-general of jails, refused to react to Khalil’s claim. “I cannot say anything on this because a judicial inquiry has already been instituted, and any comment from my side may create confusion in the inquiry process,” he said.
Khalil’s statement has deepened the mystery over the reported jail break, while the videos purportedly showed the police shooting fugitives who lay on the ground, some officials were heard in the audio clips telling their colleagues to “shoot them all”.
Though the police said the inmates had made keys out of toothbrushes, used them to unlock the cell they were lodged in and then overpowered a guard before scaling the jail wall to escape. It’s strange that ironically, several CCTV cameras installed in the area were not functional specifically at the time of the ‘jail break’.
The police claimed the fugitives were tracked down in the outskirts of the city and then engaged in a firefight, resulting in their deaths.