New Delhi:
The Delhi Police is studying security camera footage from a guest house near the famous Jama Masjid mosque to identify who left an AK-56 assault rifle, two magazines with 30 cartridges each, and a hand grenade in a room on its third floor.
The ammunition was found in a police raid on the guest house on Thursday night.
It was allegedly intended for a man who was arrested while on his way from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh to Delhi on March 20. The police say the man, Liyakat Shah, is a terrorist from the Hizbul Mujahideen group who moved from Kashmir to Pakistan in 1997 and was trained there.
The police say he was asked by a senior commander of the Hizbul to execute a terror attack in Delhi. The Hizbul allegedly organised a Pakistani passport for Shah who entered India via Nepal.
The police say that on March 19, it received an intelligence alert that a terror attack was being planned in Delhi, and it managed to track down Shah in Uttar Pradesh as he headed to the capital on a bus. He told them about the ammunition that was waiting for him in a Delhi guest house.
The employees at that small hotel have reportedly told the police that a man who posed as a tourist checked into the room where the bag was found around 4 pm on March 20. Just four hours later, he left the room and did not return, though he had paid for a full day's stay.