New Delhi:
Four days after it arrested a man named Sayyed Liyaqat Shah and claimed he was a Hizbul Mujahideen militant, the Delhi Police have released the sketch of a person it says is Liyaqat's aide.
The sketch is that of a man who checked into a guest house in Old Delhi and left an AK-56 assault rifle, two magazines with 30 cartridges each and three hand grenades there allegedly for Liyaqat, says the police.
"We had prepared the sketch on the basis of the CCTV footage and the description given by hotel staff," a Delhi Police official said.
The police forces of Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi have vastly different versions of why Liyaqat entered India via the Nepal border three days ago.
The Delhi Police said it had received a tip-off in February that Liyaqat was headed to Delhi to execute a terror strike on the instructions of the Hizbul Mujahideen. It says it intercepted Liyaqat on March 20 in Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and that he then confessed that arms and ammunition were waiting for him in a guest house in Delhi.
But Liyaqat's wife and the Jammu and Kashmir Police say that he was a militant whose return to his home state had been sanctioned by central and state government agencies as part of a surrender and rehabilitation policy offered to those who had crossed into Pakistan, did not participate in terror-related activities, and wanted to resettle in Kashmir.
Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has said that the government will order a thorough inquiry into the controversial arrest of Liyaqat, according to a Srinagar-based newspaper. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Saturday had asked Mr Shinde to assign the case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
"A decision on whether an inquiry is warranted will be taken after scrutiny of both the versions," Union Home Secretary R K Singh told the Press Trust of India.