A red Ford EcoSport: Delhi Police hunt for another car owned by dead Red Fort blast suspect

Search began after investigation revealed that Umar Un Nabi used another car as well. He had used a fake address to purchase the vehicle, say people aware of probe details.

Dr Umar U.Nabi, the key suspect, worked at a hospital in Faridabad | By special arrangement

New Delhi: The Delhi Police is on the lookout for a SUV, registered in the name of Red Fort blast suspect Umar Un Nabi, after investigation suggested that he had another vehicle.

All Delhi police stations, police posts, and border checkpoints were alerted to look out for a red EcoSport. The Ford SUV has a Delhi registration. The Uttar Pradesh and Haryana Police have also been alerted for locating this sport utility vehicle.

It is unclear that if this vehicle is connected to the blast near the Red Fort.

“Investigation has revealed that the accused (Nabi) used another car as well. Teams have been dispatched to locate it,” a senior police officer said. “This car is in addition to the white i20 that caused the blast.”

The vehicle, according to police sources, was 7 years 11 months old and was registered in Delhi’s Rajouri Garden. It was registered on 22 November 2017, the same year he completed his MBBS.

Nabi, the sources said, used a fake address to purchase the vehicle. “He had given the address of a house in North-East Delhi for purchasing the car,” one of the sources told ThePrint.

Apart from forming teams to trace the SUV, the Delhi Police conducted a late-night raid at that address in North-East Delhi.

Nabi, a native of Pulwama who worked at Al Falah hospital in Faridabad, is believed to be driving the i20 that exploded and killed at least 13 people. Several others were injured in the blast that took place near the Red Fort Metro station.

Eight people have been arrested over the past 15 days, including three doctors—Shaheen Shahid, Adeel Ahmed Rathar and Muzammil Shakeel. Rathar and Shakeel like Nabi are from Kashmir.

Eight people have been arrested over the past 15 days, including three doctors—Shaheen Shahid, Adeel Ahmed Rathar and Muzammil Shakeel—from Kashmir. Nabi, Shahid, and Shakeel worked together at Al Falah. Rathar, a close associate of the trio, worked in a hospital in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur.

Nabi had left Faridabad for Delhi on the morning of 10 November, hours before the blast in the i20. The Jammu and Kashmir police along with its Haryana counterpart had conducted raids during the day at Shakeel’s rented accommodations in Dhauj and recovered 2,900 kg of explosive materials, including 353 kg of ammonium nitrate.

The suspects were part of a module, according to investigators, that worked with terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, a J&K-based specific wing of al Qaeda. They had got in touch with Pakistan-based handlers through social media and planned serial blasts across northern states, including Delhi, they suspect.

(Edited by Tony Rai)