Recovered from phone dumped in river, Red Fort bomber’s ‘martyrdom’ video was shot in April

Content of video purportedly recovered from Umar’s phone points to ‘lone-wolf-cell grooming’ where ‘mentors’ start off with arguments on suicide bombing and Islam.

Still from video purportedly recovered from phone Umar Nabi handed to his brother | By Special Arrangement

New Delhi: Umar Un Nabi, the doctor at the centre of the Red Fort blast, had recorded the video, purportedly recovered from his cell phone, in April. Umar handed the phone to his brother when he last visited home before the blast, asking him to dispose of it if the police came knocking, ThePrint has learnt. The phone, said sources, was recovered from a river. 

“He (Umar) shot the video in April. He carried two phones at that time and one he gave it to his brother Zahoor Illahi and instructed him to dump it. This video was saved on the phone which has now been recovered,” a source said. Both of Umar’s brothers, Illahi and elder brother Ashiq Hussain, were picked by police for questioning in the aftermath of the blast that has claimed at least 15 lives at the time of filing this report.

In the video purportedly recovered from the cell phone, Umar says the concept of suicide bombing is “misunderstood”. “One of the very misunderstood concepts is the concept of what has been addressed as suicide bombing. It is martyrdom operations, and it is known in Islam,” he can be heard saying in the 80-second video ThePrint has accessed.

He adds, “There are multiple arguments brought against it, the martyrdom operations. Where a person presumes that he is going to for sure die at a particular place, at a particular time, he goes against the presumption…we don’t have a situation…(sic).”

Sources said Umar’s video is being seen as part of “lone-wolf-cell grooming” where “mentors” start off with arguments on suicide bombing and Islam.

Originally from Pulwama, Umar was working as an assistant professor in the general medicine department at Al-Falah University in Faridabad. On 10 November, he was at the wheel of the white i20 that exploded near Red Fort. The vehicle was laden with explosives—a combination of triacetone triperoxide and ammonium nitrate. As ThePrint reported earlier, Umar allegedly developed this in his Al Falah campus accommodation.

He had returned to Delhi-NCR on 24 October, days before the blast.

(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)