Eight members of a banned outfit Simi were on Monday killed by the police on the outskirts of the city, hours after they had escaped from jail.
The group had slit the throat of a security guard before escaping in the early hours, according to the police.
The police said they had shot down the fugitives in an encounter, but their version has been widely questioned.
TV channels showed footage of the purported encounter. The video shows a policeman pumping bullets into a man from a close range.
Two of the eight members of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (Simi) who escaped had been involved in a similar jailbreak from Khandwa three years ago.
The police said the jailbreak took place between 2 and 3 am.
The prisoners scaled the walls of the high-security jail with the help of bedsheets, DIG Raman Singh told reporters.
The undertrials were traced to Malikheda, where they were surrounded and killed when they challenged the police, a policeman said.
In New Delhi, the Opposition demanded a judicial inquiry as it found the official version of the incident “suspicious” and “contradictory”.
Given the sensitivity of the issue, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh sought a report from the Madhya Pradesh government on the Simi activists escaping through a jailbreak. Later, they were shot dead by the state police on Monday.
The BJP government in the state, however, has sought an NIA probe into the slain Simi activists’ international link.
“I had a talk with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh because these terrorists have links not only in the state, but in India and the world… and he also agreed that this incident should be probed by the NIA to expose the entire links behind it,” Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan stated in Bhopal.
While the Congress and Left demanded a judicial probe to get to the bottom of the truth, the BJP charged the Opposition with politicising the sensitive issue and demoralising the police force.
“I am demanding a judicial probe because even the government must know under what circumstances they escaped. People of the state and country must know how terrorists with with such a record were able to escape from such a high-security jail and within hours caught and shot dead,” senior Congress MP from the state, Kamal Nath, said.
CPM’s Brinda Karat also demanded a judicial enquiry since she found the official narrative of the encounter as “highly dubious and suspicious” and “contradictory”.
Those killed have been identified as Amjad, Zakir Hussain Sadiq, Mohammad Salik, Mujeeb Shaikh, Mehbood Guddu, Mohammad Kalid Ahmed, Aqeel and Majid. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) will probe the jail-break. The jail superintendent was among four officials suspended for the jail-break.
IG Yogesh Choudhary said the fugitives had opened fire when confronted, and the police had only fired in retaliation. His comments appeared to contradict the Home Minister Bhupendra Singh’s statement.
Bhupendra Singh had said the undertrials used spoons and plates from the prison as weapons to attack security personnel.
Asked for his response to the TV footage, he maintained the encounter was genuine.
At a brief media interaction, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan parried a question on the encounter. He said the state government would carry out a separate investigation.
After the jailbreak, the state government had released sketches of the fugitives, and suspended four officials, including Jail Superintendent Akhilesh Tomar.
The government had also announced a reward of Rs 5 lakh on the head of each of the eight escaped undertrials.
Holding that the statements of the police and the Home Minister were contradictory, the Opposition Congress demanded a judicial inquiry into the encounter. Madhya Pradesh is ruled by the BJP.
This is the second major jail-break by operatives of Simi in three years.
Seven members of the group had pulled off a sensational escape from jail in Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh in 2013.
The Union Home Ministry has sought a detailed report from the state government on the jail-break.
The central security agencies had been particularly anxious as four of the seven Simi members, who escaped from Khandwa on October 1, 2013, had been arrested only three years later.
When they were on the run, they were purportedly involved in multiple incidents of terror and a bank robbery. Their activities covered Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.
Simi was banned by the government in 2001.