A woman doctor arrested from Uttar Pradesh has emerged as a major suspect in the deadly car blast outside the Red Fort in New Delhi on Monday, and taken the investigation to a larger, inter-state network.
Investigators say Dr. Shaheen Sayeed, 40, who was associated with the Al Falah University in Faridabad, was allegedly tasked with ferrying the explosives as well as creating a base for the terror group, the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), outside of the Kashmir Valley.
“It was from her car that we seized an assault rifle. She is a close friend of Dr. Muzamil and she knew her car was being used to ferry the explosives,” said a government source.
Muzamil Ahmad Ganaie, from Pulwama, and Adeel, from Wanpora in Kulgam are the other two doctors among eight arrested in connection with the car blast case. All the three from the medical fraternity were working at Al Falah University, and arrested from Faridabad in Haryana and Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh between October 30 and November 8.
Five others were arrested in the ‘terror module’ case from Jammu & Kashmir, and found with 2,900 kg of explosives, including ammonium nitrate, which was seized.
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The arrests came just hours before the blast outside the Red Fort, in which 13 people have so far died and 20 others injured. Investigators believe the module and car blast are linked and that it was part of a well-coordinated operation between the JeM and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AguH) operatives.
AguH is the Indian cell of global terror outfit, Al Qaeda, founded by Zakir Musa, who was killed in an encounter with security forces in 2019.
Dr. Shaheen was tasked with setting-up the women’s recruitment wing of the JeM in India, called Jamaat-ul-Mominat, which was meant to attract educated women and professionals into the group’s network, say government sources.
“We had no idea about the enormity of the case. After the cleric’s arrest, we recovered sophisticated weapons at the instance of the accused. It was only after 2,900 kg of explosives were seized in Faridabad that the intensity of the attack could be understood. A bulk of the explosives was seized on November 10 from the house of Mohammad Ishtiyaq, a resident of Mewat in Haryana who was working as a cleric at Al Falah college,” the source said.
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