New Delhi: Eleven days before the Delhi blast, the bomber drove his i20 from Faridabad to Nuh, carrying in the car the same pile of ammunition that exploded near Red Fort after he returned to the capital city on 10 November.
Investigators told ThePrint they are trying to piece together movements of Dr Umar un Nabi in Nuh including where he was hiding and if he met anyone, in the days before the terror attack killed 13 people in Delhi.
J&K Police on 27 October arrested cleric Irfan Ahmad Wagay from Shopian after pro-Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) posters were put up in the area.
Two days after Wagay’s arrest, Nabi and an associate bought the i20 from a local dealer in Faridabad. Sources said the accused may have packed the car with explosives material the same day.
By 30 October, Nabi’s associate and colleague at Faridabad’s Al-Falah medical college – Dr Muzammil Shakeel – was detained for allegedly being part of the terror module. The same day, Nabi left for Nuh in the i20.
Though Shakeel lived in the staff headquarters at the Al-Falah University, it was in his name that two houses in Faridabad’s Dhauj village were rented. Here, the terror operatives were storing nearly 3,000kg of explosives material, most of which was ammonium nitrate.
Shakeel and Wagay’s detention led police to Dr Adeel Ahmed Rather – another suspected member of the module and a doctor practising in UP’s Saharanpur. Rather was arrested by 6 November.
Between 8 and 10 November, J&K and Haryana Police had also discovered and seized all the explosives material found at the Dhauj properties.
Sources told ThePrint that investigators tracking the terror module were aware of Nabi’s involvement by 3 November, a week before the Delhi attack, but the doctor had turned off his cell phone, making it difficult to trace him.
“Nabi’s movements and the exact sequence of events are yet to be fully ascertained. But the probe so far has revealed that when Nabi left for Nuh, the i20 that he was driving had the same explosives — which are suspected to have caused the blast,” a source said Saturday.
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They are yet to trace Nabi’s movement in Nuh.
But CCTV footage shows that he drove back to NCR in the early hours of 10 November – the i20 was spotted at the Firozpur Jhirka toll plaza in Nuh around 1.3o am and later at the Badarpur toll plaza.
Nabi then entered Delhi, where he zigged-zagged across the city until the evening.
“We suspect he made a halt at Wazirpur in Delhi too,” a second source said, adding that investigators are trying to find out if he met someone in Delhi or further rigged the explosives.
The first source said it wasn’t yet clear if the Red Fort explosion was a pre-mature attack or a deliberate one. But Nabi appears to be distressed in CCTV clips.
“He looks disturbed. Our probe has found that he had knowledge of assembling explosives. He was growing impatient and wanted to carry out serial blasts as soon as possible,” the source said.
He added, “Why he left with explosives material on 30 November only to return on 10th, and then drive to the Red Fort Metro station is under investigation. Whether it was a thought-out plan or a knee-jerk reaction is to be determined. One thing is clear, he was panicky after the first arrests,” the source added.
Nabi was the sole occupant in the car when the bomb went off at 6.52 pm. A DNA analysis of samples collected from the blast site matched with those of his mother, establishing that it was him who was behind the wheel at the time of the attack.
Hailing from Kashmir’s Pulwama, Nabi was identified as a key member of the ‘white collar’ terror module involving multiple doctors. The unit, according to investigators, is linked to terrorist outfits Jaish-e-Mohammad and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind.
Also Read: Four doctors linked to terror module behind Delhi blast deregistered, barred from practising by NMC