Sayyed Liyaqat Shah’s arrest not based on IB input

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police suffered a setback on Monday when home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde handed over the probe of Sayyed Liyaqat Shah’s arrest to the National Investigation Agency. “The case has been given to the NIA,” Shinde said on Monday, conceding to J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah’s demand. The ministry is set to review J&K rehabilitation policy for ex-militants in light of this case.

All 241 men who have returned from Pakistan took the unsanctioned Nepal route. Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar, who met Home Secretary RK Singh on Monday, admitted that Shah’s arrest was not based on any input from the Intelligence Bureau (IB).

“This (Liyaqat’s arrest) was not based on an IB input. It was purely a Delhi Police operation based on our own intelligence,” Kumar said after emerging from the meeting with the home secretary. A document had emerged of an ambiguous input received from the Subsidiary IB unit in Srinagar by the Multi-Agency Coordination Centre on March 20 that a Pakistan-based terrorist has reached Nepal along with his children on March 19 from Pakistan for onward journey by train to J&K, “to join his family.”

Intelligence officials say the note did not mention Liyaqat by name and never said that the person was planning a terror strike in Delhi. Also, Delhi Police registered a case on March 19 and arrested Liyaqat on March 20, while the input was only generated on March 20.