Gurugram: Haryana is set to get its own anti-terrorism squad (ATS) this year. A senior official in the Haryana government told ThePrint that Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini has approved the home department’s proposal, and the file has been sent to the finance department for clearance. Once that is done, Haryana will have a dedicated counter-terror structure like 11 other states in the country.
The move has been a long time coming. The Union Home Ministry had pushed the matter at anti-terrorism conferences in New Delhi in 2023 and 2024, asking all states and Union Territories to set up standardised ATSs. A formal letter along with a model structure was sent to Haryana on 17 January 2025. When there was no movement on it, Home Minister Amit Shah’s office sent two reminders to the Haryana government, ThePrint has learnt.
Finally, Saini’s approval came after a meeting on the issue of ATS with the state’s home department on 10 February.
The pressure from the Centre, however, was only part of the impetus. The events of 10 November 2025, when an explosives-laden Hyundai i20 detonated near a crowded metro station outside Delhi’s Red Fort, have also pushed along the decision.
The man believed to be behind the while of the car, Dr Umar Un Nabi, a 28-year-old doctor from Pulwama, had been teaching at Al-Falah University in Dhauj village in Haryana’s Faridabad.
Hours before the explosion, a joint operation by the Haryana Police and the Jammu and Kashmir Police had led to multiple arrests and the discovery of nearly 3,000 kg of explosives from rented premises near the university campus.
Investigations revealed more terror links and activities in Haryana. According to security agencies, a group of doctors and religious preachers in the state had formed a new outfit under the name ‘Ansar Interim’ with the intent to carry out attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country.
The three key accused, deceased bomber Dr Umar and arrested doctors Muzammil Shakeel and Shaheen Sayeed, had reportedly made online payments to locals for help in strengthening their network and build support. A review of call records and online transactions placed nearly 200 people under the scanner, including imams of madrassas, local shopkeepers, diagnostics centre owners and current and former students and colleagues from the Al-Falah University.
Once the NIA took over the case, they arrested a seventh person, Soyab, a resident of Dhauj in Faridabad, for providing logistical support to Dr Umar before the attack.
Separately, the Enforcement Directorate arrested the university’s founder-chairman, Jawad Ahmed Siddiqui, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, alleging that the institute had generated around Rs 415 crore between 2018-19 and 2024-25 with investigators alleging funds were diverted through affiliated entities.
Other terror modules in Haryana
The Al-Falah case was the most dramatic in Haryana, but it was not the only one.
A year earlier, on 10 December 2024, crude bombs went off at the Warehouse Club and Human Club in Gurugram’s Sector 29. During interrogation, the accused arrested at the scene—Sachin Taliyan from Meerut—revealed he was a henchman of Canada-based designated terrorist Satinderjit Singh alias Goldy Brar, who works for the proscribed Babbar Khalsa International.
The NIA took over the case and subsequently filed a chargesheet against Brar and seven others, including three Haryana residents—Vijay, Ajit Sehrawat, and Vinay—alleging the conspiracy was hatched to spread communal disharmony and destabilise law and order in Haryana and neighbouring states.
Then came the wave of espionage arrests after the Pahalgam attack on 22 April 2025, and India’s subsequent Operation Sindoor. Nine individuals—all aged between 18 and 35—were arrested from Punjab and Haryana for allegedly leaking sensitive military information to Pakistan’s ISI, acting on instructions from Pakistani handlers.
From Haryana alone, those arrested included Devendra Singh Dhillon, a 26-year-old postgraduate student from Kaithal who had visited Pakistan via the Kartarpur corridor in November 2024 and allegedly shared photographs of the Patiala military cantonment with ISI officers; Jyoti Malhotra, a travel vlogger from Hisar with nearly 4 lakh YouTube subscribers, was charged under the Official Secrets Act for allegedly sharing military information after being groomed by a Pakistan High Commission official; and two residents of Nuh—Armaan and Mohammad Tarif—were arrested for sharing information related to Indian Army activities with ISI handlers via WhatsApp and social media.
Structure of the proposed ATS
The official quoted earlier told ThePrint that under the approved structure, the squad will be headed by an IGP-rank officer functioning under the CID chief and the overall supervision of the DGP. Headquarters will be in Panchkula.
A separate ATS police station will be set up in Gurugram, which along with the districts of south Haryana, Nuh, Faridabad, Palwal, Mewat, has figured repeatedly in recent cases.
The ATS will have five wings: A special force on NSG lines, an intelligence and operations branch, an investigation and prosecution unit, a research, analysis and training division with a dedicated counter-radicalisation cell, and an administration and logistics department.
Once set up, Haryana will become the 12th state to have its own ATS. Other states that have a dedicated ATS are Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Kerala.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
Also read: ‘White-Collar’ terror probe: Doctors formed terror group ‘Ansar Interim’ for J-K, hinterland attacks