Three days before the suicide bombing attack near Delhi’s Red Fort, the suspect Dr Umar Nabi had switched off his phone and his family had been unable to reach him.
The suspected suicide bomber had gone underground after he came to know that the police were looking for him following the arrest of Dr Adil and Dr Muzamil – the doctor duo whose questioning led the police to recover 2,900 kg of explosive material including ammonium nitrate from Faridabad in Haryana.
There is a sense of disbelief and shock in Koyal village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama as people came to know about the 33-year-old doctor turning out to be suspected suicide bomber.
Following the bomb attack in Delhi that killed 12 and injured nearly two dozen people, the police in Jammu and Kashmir launched a major crackdown on suspects.
At Koyal village, the police searched the house of Dr Umar and arrested his mother and two brothers. Sources said DNA samples of the mother have been taken to check with the samples of the suicide attacker. The police today detained the father too, reportedly to take his DNA samples. He could not be detained yesterday due to his mental condition.
Dr Sajad, a friend and colleague of the suspected bomber at Alfalah University, is in police custody. It’s unclear if Dr Sajad is being questioned only to gather more information about Dr Umar and other terror suspects or he too is being detained as an accused in the larger conspiracy.
Around 20 km from Koyal, at Samboora village, police arrested two brothers, Amir and Umar Rashid. Amir, a plumber, is considered a key accused since his photo standing in front of a car suspected to be used in the terror plot surfaced.
Amir’s family said he had never visited any place outside Jammu and Kashmir, and there is no question of him standing in front of a car in Faridabad in Haryana.
The family said the police raided their home at 10.30 pm on Monday and immediately detained Amir and Umar. So far, there has been no statement from the police on whether the two siblings were part of a terror plot.
All these developments came after the massive police operation on Monday that led to the seizure of explosive material.
The police had been working on the case since October 19 after posters of terrorist group Jaish-e -Mohammed appeared in Nowgam Srinagar. A meticulously executed investigation by the local police station led to the unravelling of a larger conspiracy and involvement of Dr Adeel.
He was arrested last week and eventually he led the police to recover an assault rifle from a hospital wardrobe in Anantnag. Further questioning of the doctor led to the arrest of another doctor Muzamil Ahmad, who taught in Al-Falah Medical college. It was after the interrogation of Muzamil that police zeroed in on the large amount of explosives.
Over the last few days, the police and intelligence agencies have raided multiple places to uncover a worrying white-collar, terrorist ecosystem, involving radicalised professionals.