Bhopal, Jun 26 (TOI): The one-man judicial commission inquiring the encounter killing of eight SIMI suspects on Bhopal’s outskirts on October 31, 2016, has justified the use of force by police as “reasonable and inevitable”.

It advises bringing the jails department under home department for better coordination. The eight accused, who were facing trial in terror cases, had broken out of Bhopal central jail on the night of October 30 after cutting the throat of a guard.

They were gunned down on a hillock on the outskirts of Bhopal eight hours later. The government set up a judicial commission, under retired high court judge SK Pandey, to probe the jailbreak and the encounter.

The final report was tabled in the Assembly by minister Lal Singh Arya on Monday. The probe concludes that circumstances under which the eight undertrials escaped justified the use the force. The report says that the SIMI suspects fired on police, who retaliated.

“The encounter was reasonable under the prevailing circumstances. The police action was in consonance with the provisions of law under Section 41 and 46 (2) (3) of CrPC. The use of forcewas quite inevitable and quite reasonable,” said the commission.