Delhi Red Fort blast: How a plot unravelled due to Jaish posters in Kashmir valley

Written in Urdu, the posters warned of imminent “spectacular attacks” on security forces and outsiders (non-natives) in Kashmir.

It started, on October 18, in the Kashmir Valley, with posters of proscribed terror group, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). It ended, on November 10, with a blast near Delhi’s Red Fort that killed at least 10 people. And as investigations moved from the Valley to Srinagar and Kulgam (also in Kashmir), and then to Faridabad, they unveiled a network of highly-qualified and highly-radicalised terrorists, likely getting their instructions from across the border, and affiliated with terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Security officials deployed outside the Red Fort on Tuesday. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

On the night of October 18, Jammu & Kashmir police learnt of posters pasted on the walls of houses in Nowgam, a middle-class neighbourhood on the periphery of Srinagar. Written in Urdu, the posters warned of imminent “spectacular attacks” on security forces and outsiders (non-natives) in Kashmir.

On October 19, the police lodged an FIR under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and began investigations. Police scoured CCTV footage and picked up three young men, who confessed to having put up the posters at the behest of Moulvi Irfan, an Imam (cleric) at a mosque in Srinagar’s Chanpora.

Irfan, from Shopian in South Kashmir, was known to the police as an instigator and organiser of stone-pelting, the most frequent form of violent protests in the Valley prior to 2019.

“He was a highly radicalised overground operative with affiliation to Jaish and known for indoctrinating young people with his insidious anti-India propaganda and even motivating them to cross over to Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir for training in arms,” said a senior police officer in Kashmir, who has seen the dossier on Irfan.

Post-August 2019, when security agencies launched a major crackdown to dismantle the terror eco-system and overground network of terror organisations, Irfan went quiet, pretending to confine himself to his religious activities.

Irfan’s interrogation shed light on a sprawling terror network beyond Jammu and Kashmir. “ He sang like a canary,” said a senior police officer familiar with the confession.

Irfan named Adeel Rather, a doctor from Kulgam in South Kashmir as part of a conspiracy to put up Jaish posters. A resident doctor at Government Medical College in Anantnag until October last year, Rather was employed at Al Falah Medical College in Faridabad, Haryana, at the time.

He was arrested in October. And it was his interrogation that revealed the name of a fellow doctor, Muzammil Ganai, a resident doctor at Government Medical College in Srinagar, before he shifted to Al Falah.

Ganai was arrested on October 30. And, in turn, he told his interrogators about another doctor, Umar Un Nabi, at Al Falah who was part of their network. He also confessed to possessing an illegal AK-47 rifle -- it was stored in the car of his friend Dr Shaheen Shahid, also a doctor at Al Falah.

By connecting the dots, J&K police found “a clear Jaish angle” in the plot, said the police officer cited above, asking not to be named. “An initial analysis of the arrested persons’ digital devices shows that they were in touch with their Jaish terror handlers in Pakistan through Telegram platform,” he added.

Both Rather and Ganai spoke of Hafiz Ishtiaq, a cleric who had rented a house in Faridabad and was a regular visitor to Al Fatah; they claimed he was the key in procuring and storing of huge quantities of ammonium nitrate and detonators for assembling bombs.

Subsequent police raids led to seizure of 2,563kg and 358kg of explosive chemical from Ishtiaq and Muzammil.

“The war-like stores of explosives and detonators were meant for a large scale terror strikes” said a second police investigator.

The police officials suspect that once the explosives were discovered, Umar Un Nabi knew the game was up. He fled in a car, with some explosives. That was the vehicle that blew up near Red Fort on Monday.