The National Investigation Agency (NIA) of India said it failed to find any record of a call made by Kashmiri terror suspect Liaquat Shah to his ‘Pakistani handlers’, The Economic Times reported on Friday.
Shah was arrested in 2013 on suspicion of planning to target New Delhi on the eve of Holi that year. After his arrest, the Delhi police claimed they had made Shah speak to his ‘Pakistani handlers’ in a ‘controlled conversation’ which led to the recovery of weapons hidden inside a Jama Masjid guest house.
Nearly two years later, the NIA exonerated Shah and filed a charge-sheet against a fugitive police informer who planted the weapons to implicate Shah.
Further, Delhi Special Cell officers ACP Manishi Chandra and Inspector Sanjay Dutt had admitted to NIA that they had not maintained any record of the telephonic conversation.
“This was also agreed to in writing by Delhi Police; efforts made to obtain the transcripts of the said conversation, if any, have not borne any result as the same are not available with any state police/intelligence agency,” the NIA told the Indian Home Ministry in a 20-page note.
“No record of the voice content and the transcript exists to establish the veracity of the facts purported to be part of the conversation,” the NIA stressed.
Shah was intercepted from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh while trying to make his way into the country through the Nepal border. He was accused of returning from Pakistan to plan attacks in Delhi to avenge the hanging of Afzal Guru.
Later, police claimed to have seized an AK-56 rifle, three hand-grenades and some other articles from the guesthouse. The Kashmiri had broke down before the media while being taken to court, saying he was being framed.
