The November 10 car bomb blast near the Red Fort that killed 12 people was part of an operation called ‘Heavenly India’ launched in 2022 by a group of extremist medical professionals linked to Al Qaeda’s Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind group, the National Investigation Agency said in a chargesheet filed in a Delhi court on Thursday.
The 7,500-page chargesheet filed in a special court in Delhi’s Patiala House Courts names four doctors – Muzammil Shakeel, Adeel Ahmed Rather, Shaheen Saeed and Bilal Naseer Malla. It also mentions the names of other conspirators Jasir Bilal Wani, Aamir Rashid Mir, Yasir Ahmed Dar, Suyab (only one name) and Mufti Ahmed Wajai, who allegedly played a key role in radicalizing the members of the unit. It is proposed that the charges against Dr. Omar Al-Nabi, who was driving the car, be dropped since he died in the explosion.
The charges include the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), Explosives Act, Arms Act, and Public Property Damage Prevention Act.
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“All the 10 accused, including the main perpetrator, Dr. Omar Unnabi (deceased), were associated with Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGuH) – an offshoot of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS),” the NIA said in a statement. AQAP and all its affiliated organizations were notified as terrorist organizations by the Ministry of Interior in June 2018.
AGuH was formed in July 2017 by Zakir Rasheed Bhat alias Zakir Musa, who was once a close aide of Burhan Wani, after he broke away from Hizbul Mujahideen. In the initial days, AGuH coordinated with other groups in Jammu and Kashmir, but a sustained crackdown by security forces brought its activities to an end. Officials in the intelligence community said AGuH is not widely accepted in Kashmir. After Musa was killed by security forces in May 2019, it became disabled.
The accused reconstituted the AGuH as “temporary AGuH” after a secret meeting in Srinagar in 2022, the NIA said on Thursday.
The indictment details how four doctors, including Nabi and Muzamil, earlier that year traveled to Turkey and met with their therapist, who had the code name Akasha, people familiar with the matter said. But one of the officers said that the plan to travel to Afghanistan did not come to fruition.
“Under the umbrella of the newly formed group, they launched ‘Operation Heavenly India’ with the aim of overthrowing the democratically established Indian government and imposing Sharia rule. They recruited new members, actively spread violent jihadi ideology, stockpiled weapons and ammunition, and manufactured explosives on a large scale using commercially available chemicals. They also manufactured and tested various types of explosive devices,” the agency said.
The group experimented with using missiles and drone-borne explosive devices to target security forces in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere, the NIA said in its chargesheet, adding that it had purchased an AK-47 rifle and a Krenkov rifle. The forensic examination of the Delhi blast site also confirmed the use of triacetone triperoxide (TATP), a powerful explosive, which the members made by secretly procuring ingredients and conducting experiments to arrive at the perfect mixture, the NIA said.
Following the explosion, forensic experts at the National Intelligence Agency were able to identify the deceased suicide bomber, Omar Unnabi, through DNA fingerprinting. The agency also collected evidence from Al Falah University in Faridabad, where he worked as an assistant professor.
Agency investigation
The agency has so far arrested 11 people in the case while investigations are still underway to track down the fugitives.
Before the blast, between November 8 and 10, raids carried out by the Jammu and Kashmir police in Faridabad, which were investigating a case of anti-national posters in Nowgam, Srinagar, led to the recovery of nearly 3,000 kg of explosives, along with detonators, timers and other bomb-making materials.
The Jammu and Kashmir Police’s State Investigation Agency (SIA), in a chargesheet filed in May, said the doctors’ unit was involved in a conspiracy to revive banned terror outfit Ansar Ghazwat-e-Hind (AGuH) under the more notorious guise of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).
