Police sources said at least two names and phone numbers have been traced to Azamgarh, in Uttar Pradesh, till now. Several other numbers in the diary belong to people from Delhi and surroundings areas, they said.

According to an official who is part of the investigating team, two names feature prominently in the diary: Mohammed Shahid and one Altaf, both Azamgarh residents. They said both UP police’s anti-terrorism squad (ATS) and Delhi Police’s Special Cell put the numbers on technical surveillance immediately after seizing the diary.

The surveillance so far reveals that Ali Ahmed and Abu Ismail, the alleged militants gunned in Noida’s Sector-97 after a brief gunbattle, were in constant touch with the Azamgarh duo. The police had yesterday claimed to have found two Pakistani passports from their car. Investigators suspect they initially stayed in Azamgarh for a while after crossing the border to India; later, they came to the NCR in a bid to sneak into the Capital.

They are believed to have been in the NCR for “at least a month”.

The Special Cell, meanwhile, conducted raids at various places across the Capital. Though the raids did not lead to the recovery of anything substantial, sources said they were meant primarily to flush out suspected terror modules active in the Capital.

Senior officers said the raids were conducted following inputs from UP police. A Special Cell team today also visited the encounter spot in Noida and met UP police officials probing the case to share information, officials said.

Case registered in Noida
A senior officer of the ATS’s Noida unit said the diary contains several phone numbers from within the Meerut-Muradnagar-Ghaziabad-Noida zone of NCR. The officer said the two had been staying in the region for the past more than a month. “It was not possible for them to have stayed in the region without local support, or support from other members of their group, especially since they were heavily armed,” the ATS officer said.

The police said autopsy on the slain duo was conducted today at the postmortem house in Noida. Officials say they would contact the Pakistan High Commission in the Capital to hand over the bodies of the alleged militants, who the investigators claim are Pakistani citizens.

The Noida police also registered cases against the slain “terrorists” for possessing illegal arms, intending to disrupt peace of the country, using a stolen car, and illegal stay in the country. The case has been registered at Sector-39 police station. Station House Officer Anil Samania said, “The acts under which the cases have been registered might be extended once the investigations lead to more evidence.”