![Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas (Image credit Hermann Luyken/Wikimedia Commons]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2017/10/8/660x290/b_502x220x82/mandalay-bay-hotel-in-las-vegas-image-credit-hermann-luyken-wikimedia-commons_1618159.jpg "Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas (Image credit Hermann Luyken/Wikimedia Commons]")
It was October 1 and the last day of the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas. More than 20,000 music lovers had gathered in the Mandalay Bay area to enjoy country music when bullets began to shower on them. In no time, the scene of joy and happiness turned into one of tragedy with bodies and blood scattered all over.
The 64-year-old shooter occupied one of the rooms on the 32nd floor in Mandalay Bay hotel, and the police could not take him alive because he shot himself before they arrived.
It is now one week over, and the police appear to be clueless.
They have followed up nearly 1000 leads but have not been able to establish the motive of the massacre.
It was a meticulously planned massacre
New Zealand Herald reports that the Las Vegas gunman had planned his act to the minutest detail. When police officers entered the room in the Mandalay Bay hotel, they found evidence to support the planning.
It was in the form of a handwritten note lying on the table and showed detailed calculations of which area of the music festival he should target to achieve a maximum number of casualties. Preliminary investigations revealed that he had requested an upper-floor hotel room from where he could have the best view of the festival.
He had also stockpiled weapons in the form of 23 guns with nearly half of them modified to fire continuously like an automatic weapon.
He had used a special attachment known as a bump stock device for this purpose. In order to ensure his own safety, he had installed cameras at strategic locations so that he would not be taken by surprise.
The gunman is dead as are 58 innocent music lovers but the motive of the massacre is still not known.
Does it have any link to ISIS?
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the shooting in the Mandalay Bay Hotel at music lovers at the music festival in Las Vegas. It said that the gunman had converted to Islam six months ago, and committed the killing. The FBI has not come across any evidence to substantiate that statement.
However, it is believed that he did make a trip to the Middle East on a cruise within the last year, and he had traveled quite a lot over the past few years and this adds a new dimension to the case.
In the opinion of Rukmini Callimachi, a reporter attached to a reputed and influential newspaper, the claim by ISIS should not be dismissed outright. She is believed to be an expert on terror groups. According to her, ISIS does not claim responsibility for attacks carried out by others.
