Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Monday replaced additional director-general of police Sushovan Benarjee with a former official of the Research and Analysis Wing, Sudhir Shahi, after eight members of the banned Students of Islamic Movement of India outfit fled escaped from Bhopal Central Jail. Shahi was also the state chief of the special task force that investigated the Vyapam scam, reported The Times of India.

The SIMI members had killed a security guard during their escape on Monday morning. The fugitives were killed in an encounter within hours. Benarjee has been sent to the police headquarters. “If need be the officials could be dismissed from their service too,” said Chouhan.

The National Investigation Agency will look into how the undertrials were able to flee, while former Director-general of police Nandan Dubey will inquire into the security lapses on the part of the jail authorities. The incident took place between 2 am and 3 am on Monday. Deputy Inspector General Raman Singh said the militants had overpowered the guard and killed him with a "steel plate and glass", after which they used bedsheets to scale the prison walls.

Meanwhile, the identities of four of the eight SIMI activists have been ascertained – Zakir, Amzad, Salik and Mehboob. According to PTI, they had learned bomb making in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh. The police told the Hindustan Times that the eight fugitives were accused in several cases, including the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts and explosions in Karimnagar, Pune and Chennai in 2014. Director General of Bhopal Central Jail Sanjay Choudhary said that security had been beefed up for other prisoners while Delhi has been put on high alert.

SIMI is an Islamist organisation that was started in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, in April 1977. It was banned by the government in 2006.