New Delhi: The terror module run by doctors that carried out a bomb blast in Delhi on 10 November last year used the name of terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) as cover to achieve their objective of re-establishing and rebuilding another terror outfit, Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGuH), according to a probe by the Jammu and Kashmir State Investigation Agency.
The name of the JeM was used for notoriety and to create psychological impact, with a calculated plan to mislead security agencies about the true identity of the module, a Jammu and Kashmir Police spokesperson said in a statement Thursday.
Established by a Kashmir-based terrorist, Zakir Rahid Bhat, alias Zakir Musa, the AGuH is a Kashmir-based offshoot of the terrorist outfit Al-Qaeda. However, it has gone defunct over the last few years after the killing of Musa in an encounter in 2019, followed by the killing of its last declared commander, Muzamil Ahmad Tantray, in 2021.
AGuH is a known terrorist group that targets educated and sophisticated youth. In 2018, a team of the Jammu and Kashmir Police along with Punjab Police had busted terror modules operating from an engineering college in the Punjab’s Jalandhar district.
Additionally, the SIA said it found that the terror syndicate had identified Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP) as a preferred explosive material due to the relative ease of sourcing its precursor components as their source of explosives to be used for the purpose.
These revelations have been made in the chargesheet filed by the SIA in the case related to the emergence of posters in October last year, leading to the arrest of several terror suspects, including faculty at the Al Falah School of Medical Sciences and Research Centre in Haryana’s Faridabad.
Over the course of the investigation, the Union Territory Police had arrested nine persons in the case, including Dr Muzamil Shakeel Ganaie, his wife Dr Shaheen Saeed, and Dr Adeel Ahmad Rather.
Ganaie and Saeed were faculty members at the Al-Falah Medical Institute in Faridabad and were arrested by the police. However, another faculty member of the college, who was part of the module, had slipped away before the police raids and went on to explode himself in an explosive-laden car outside the Red Fort in New Delhi.
While the security and intelligence agencies were quick in identifying the connection between the case related to posters of JeM in Nowgam police limits in Srinagar and the bomb blast in Delhi, the first case remained with the state police. The case was subsequently transferred to the SIA, the UT’s equivalent of the NIA, to probe terrorism-related cases.
“Significantly, the module included highly educated individuals, including medical professionals, who misused their knowledge, access, and institutional spaces for unlawful activities,” an SIA spokesperson said Thursday.
“The accused were actively disseminating extremist propaganda through digital platforms and had undertaken procurement of materials and experimental activities related to explosive fabrication, including within residential premises and facilities linked to Al-Falah Medical College/University.”
The SIA had also approached Interpol for a Blue Corner Notice against another accused, Muzaffar Ahmad Rather, another doctor, and one of the two older brothers of Adeel Ahmad Rather.
As part of the probe, the SIA had sent all the digital devices to forensic laboratories for examination, and the subsequent reports have been added to the chargesheet.
(Edited By Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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