A Judicial Inquiry Commission was formed on Monday under retired Judge S K Pandey to investigate the Bhopal encounter. The panel has been given three months to submit its report.

A public interest litigation was also filed in the Madhya Pradesh high court earlier on Thursday on the issue demanding judicial probe into the incident.

The under-trial activists of the outlawed Students' Islamic Movement of India escaped from the Bhopal Central Jail on the intervening night of October 30-31 and were subsequently killed in an encounter on the outskirts of the city on October 31.

Before escaping from the jail, the SIMI activists also killed a head constable Ramashankar Yadav.

Since the encounter took place, conflicting versions from the police and state home minister surfaced, leading to allegations that it might be fake.

A controversy also raged over the police action following the daring pre-dawn jail-break, after TV channels showed footage purportedly from the encounter site in which a policeman is seen pumping bullets into a man from close range after some unidentified person takes out what appears to be a knife said to be in a plastic cover and places it back.