Uttar Pradesh police on Sunday claimed to have identified the two killers of Hindu Samaj Party leader Kamlesh Tiwari as Shaikh Ashfaq Hussain and Moinuddin Pathan of Surat, saying they had recovered bloodstained saffron kurtas from the duo’s hotel room in Lucknow.

Police sources said CCTV footage showed the duo walking to the hotel shortly after the time Tiwari was shot and stabbed at his office in Lucknow early on Friday afternoon.

They, however, did not explain how the two men could have walked the 2km distance wearing blood-soaked kurtas without being noticed on a crowded road.

The fresh revelation contradicts state police chief O.P. Singh, who had on Saturday said the killers belonged to Lucknow. Officers said Hussain and Pathan were in hiding.

“The two suspects had checked in at the Khalsa Inn hotel on the evening of October 17 and left without checking out on October 18 (Friday) afternoon,” Lucknow senior superintendent of police Kalanidhi Naithani said.

He said the police had recovered two bloodstained saffron kurtas and bags from the suspects’ hotel room. Tiwari’s killers were in saffron kurtas and jeans, officers had said on Friday.

Three Muslim men were arrested in Surat on Friday night on the charge of plotting Tiwari’s murder because of a comment he had made in December 2015 against a religious figure.

The suspects are Rashid Ahmad Pathan alias Khurshid, 23, a tailor; Mohsin Sheikh Salim, 24, a cleric who works in a sari shop; and Mohammad Faizan, 21, an employee in a footwear shop. Police sources claim they have confessed. They have not been brought to Uttar Pradesh yet.

On Saturday, the police arrested two clerics from Bijnore, Anwar-ul-Haq and Naseem Kazmi, who had in 2015 announced a reward for beheading Tiwari over his provocative remark.