The Delhi Police Special Cell was investigating a case from last month.
The Delhi Police today found an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) inside a bag in Delhi's old Seemapuri. The bag was recovered from an abandoned house where bomb squad and fire brigade teams were rushed after the Delhi Police Special Cell zeroed in on it during an investigation.
A team from the Rohini Forensic Science Laboratory is conducting forensic investigations at the apartment. The National Security Guard (NSG) has taken the IED away with them and will diffuse it in an open area.
The owner of the apartment is a contractor named Qasim whose father had recently passed away. Qasim had rented out the apartment on the second floor of the building through a property dealer named Shakil. It was rented out to one person but three more men moved there 10 days ago. All of them fled before the police reached there.
The Delhi Police Special Cell had intercepted several dozen suspicious phone calls that led them to the spot.
The Special Cell has identified the suspects and has also obtained their photographs. It is not yet known where these men are from. The police suspect they could be part of a sleeper cell or part of a larger conspiracy.
Videos from the spot show NSG present at the spot with a bomb detection vehicle. Visuals show heavy police deployment, with several high ranking police officials also present at the spot. The Special Cell's Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) and Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) are also present at the spot.
The police were probing a case from last month when an abandoned bag with a 3 Kg bomb full of powerful chemicals like RDX was found at a busy flower market in east Delhi's Ghazipur. The police had suspected it was a terror attempt ahead of the January 26 Republic Day celebrations and said that it was aimed at "causing maximum damage".
On January 14, a controlled explosion was carried out by the police to defuse the bomb planted at the Ghazipur market which usually draws huge crowds.
The case is also suspected to be related to a massive bomb blast in car parking at Himachal Pradesh's Kullu on January 29. The traces that the FSL team had recovered from the car bomb math the IED found in the Ghazipur case. The IED found today in Seemapuri could be linked to this chain of events.