HT follow-up: NIA revisits encounter spot to collect evidences

A team led by two senior officers of NIA – Anil Shukla, IG and Prashant Kumar, DIG searched the entire house. They were accompanied by Asim Arun, IG, UP ATS and his team.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) continued their search operations at the house in Haji Colony near Kakori, where terror suspect Saifullah Khan was killed in an encounter recently. The sleuths collected several evidences and samples to establish Saifullah and his associates’ stay in the room.

NIA team at Saifullah’s house in Haji colony near Kakori on Thursday. (Deepak Gupta/ HT Photo)

A team led by two senior officers of NIA – Anil Shukla, IG and Prashant Kumar, DIG searched the entire house on Friday. They were accompanied by Asim Arun, IG, UP ATS and his team. Sources with the NIA said samples of the comb, fallen hair and nails, towel, clothes and other belongings of Saifullah Khan and his associates were collected.

On Day I of the search operation, sleuths had collected a small packet of bullets, samples of blood and gunpowder. They said the search also aimed at establishing the presence of huge cache of arms and ammunitions with Saifullah – the alleged operations head of UP-based self-radicalised ISIS module, who was gunned down in an encounter with UP ATS on March 8.

So far, eight alleged militants have been arrested from different places.

Saifullah was killed in a 13-hour police operation when he locked himself in a room of the house where he was living for 46 days. Police had claimed that the suspected militant’s body was found with weapons lying next to him.

Besides, the ATS had claimed to have recovered eight pistols, 630 live cartridges and a huge amount of raw material used in making pressure pipe bombs.