A postmortem report on the eight alleged members of the banned Students' Islamic Movement of India, who were shot dead by the police on Monday, is out.

The report says that all the men died of gunshot wounds above the waist. The bullet wounds suggest that they were fired upon from all directions. The proximity of the firing is to be determined for which the clothes they wore will be sent for testing.

The men were killed under suspicious circumstances near Bhopal, hours after they escaped from the city's central jail by killing a security guard.

Eight SIMI activists who pulled off a daring prison break and escaped in the wee hours after killing a security guard at the Bhopal Central Jail, were on Monday hunted down and killed in a police encounter on the city outskirts.

All the eight activists were killed by Bhopal Police at Malikheda on the city outskirts, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh said.

Acting on the leads provided by locals, the cops tracked them down to Malikheda, where they were encircled and killed when they tried to challenge the police.

The activists of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India had managed to escape around 2-3 AM after killing a jail security guard and scaling the prison wall with the help of bed sheets, DIG Bhopal Raman Singh said.

The activists were identified as -- Amzad, Zakir Hussain Sadiq, Mohammad Salik, Mujeeb Shaikh, Mehbood Guddu, Mohammad Kalid Ahmed, Aqeel and Majid, a police official said.

Soon after the incident, the state government released their sketches and suspended four officials including Jail Superintendent Akhilesh Tomar. It had also announced a reward of Rs 5 lakh each on the heads of the activists.

This is the second major jail break by operatives of banned SIMI in three years after the sensational escape by seven members of the group from a jail in Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh in 2013.

The Union Home Ministry has sought a detailed report from the Madhya Pradesh government on the jail break whether there was any lapse on the part of the jail administration and the steps taken to check such incidents.