Bhubaneswar, Jan. 26: Hours before the city celebrated the Republic Day, police alerted about the movement of four suspicious-looking foreigners and swung into action to thwart a possible terrorist attack.

The development also assumes significance in view of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's two-day visit to Odisha beginning February 6.

The entire city was put on high alert with all its exit routes sealed after the foreigners, who had introduced themselves as Iraqi nationals, sought to book rooms in a hotel near Master Canteen last night. They, however, fled the spot when asked to produce their identity proof. The hotel is located close to Mahatma Gandhi Marg, where governor S.C. Jamir today hoisted the Tricolour and took the salute of the parade.

The police said the foreigners had come to the hotel in a car bearing a New Delhi registration number that, too, turned out to be fake on verification. They asked for two rooms in the hotel at any cost but performed the vanishing act when asked for their identity proof - a practice that has now become mandatory for any hotel bookings.

Though police commissioner R.P. Sharma refused to speculate on the identity of the foreigners, sources did not rule out the possibility of their being terrorists, who might have planned violence during the Republic Day celebrations.

Sharma said a manhunt had been launched to trace the foreigners, whose pictures culled from the footage of the hotel's closed-circuit television cameras has been released to facilitate their identification by the public. The visuals of the car bearing the fake registration number have also been released by the police.

The police commissioner said the four suspects, who reached the hotel around 9.30pm yesterday, wanted to book two rooms. "They bargained and finalised the rooms for Rs 5,000 but left in a hurry when asked for identity proof," he said.

The foreigners told the employee at the hotel reception that their passports were in the car and fled the spot on the excuse of going to fetch their identity proof. "On verification, we found the registration number to be a fake one," said Sharma, adding that the police swung into action immediately after being alerted by the hotel employees.

The police have also seized the hard disk containing the CCTV footage of the hotel. The pictures of the suspects and their car were released on the basis of the footage. Sharma said a thorough search operation had been launched in Bhubaneswar and its surrounding areas. The cops in other districts of the state have also been alerted.

Odisha is believed to be on the terror radar for the past sometime. In January 2014, two suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorists had visited Bhubaneswar and stayed here for two weeks. During this period, they had also visited Puri and Cuttack.

Similarly, in January last year, the Intelligence Bureau had sounded alert in four states, including Odisha, about possible attacks by four Pakistan-based terrorists outfits. Significantly, a day after this alert a cameraperson attached to Chandipur missile testing range in Balasore district was arrested on the charge of passing on defence related information to the ISI, the Pakistani spy agency.

In November last year, the Odisha government had sought the help of National Investigation Agency to probe the Puri serial train fire incident suspecting the involvement of terrorists. A month after this, a joint team of Odisha and Delhi police arrested a suspected al-Qaida terrorist from Jagatpur in Cuttack.