New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency has arrested a Haryana resident on the grounds of “harbouring” the alleged suicide bomber, who drove the i20 car that exploded near Delhi’s Red Fort earlier this month. The accused, identified as Soyab, has been taken into custody from Faridabad, where the terror module led by doctors is said to have been developed.
Soyab is the seventh individual to have been arrested by the anti-terrorism agency as part of the probe into the 10 November blast that had left 15 dead and 32 injured. The blast was allegedly caused by Ammonium Nitrate fuel oil (ANFO), allegedly accumulated by the group of doctors led by Dr Umar un Nabi, who was employed at the Al Falah School of Medical Sciences and Research Centre in Faridabad’s Dhauj village. Soyab belonged to the same village, and “provided logistical support” to Nabi, an NIA spokesperson said Wednesday.
According to sources privy to probe and case details, Soyab was also employed at Al Falah and had allegedly provided shelter to Nabi before the blast. “Nabi had stayed at the house of Soyab’s sister-in-law at Haryana’s Nuh district,” a source told ThePrint.
“NIA investigations have revealed that he had also provided logistical support to the terrorist Umar before the 10 November car bombing that killed several persons and injured many others outside the Red Fort in the national capital,” the spokesperson said in the statement.
“The agency continues to pursue various leads in connection with the suicide bombing, and has been conducting searches across states in coordination with the respective police forces in a bid to identify and track others involved in the gruesome attack.”
The NIA had previously arrested two key aides of Dr Nabi—two Kashmiri men identified as Amir Rashid Ali and Jasir Bilal Wani, alias Danish—on charges of providing logistical support to him. Amir Rashid Ali was arrested on the grounds of providing Nabi with the vehicle used for the blast, which was bought from a Faridabad-based dealer in his name. Danish was arrested for having “provided technical support for carrying out terror attacks by modifying drones and attempting to make rockets”.
The agency has also taken into custody Muzammil Shakil and Shaheen Saeed, who were also employed as doctors at the Al Falah medical college, along with Adeel Rather, who was already in custody of the Jammu and Kashmir Police in a case related to posters of terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad. The agency also brought Shopian-based preacher Mufti Irfan Ahmad Wagay to Delhi as part of the investigation into the blast.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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