NEW DELHI: The first lead in J&K police’s investigation into Jaish e Mohammad’s multi-state terror network involving Kashmiri doctors — now busted with nine arrests and a massive haul of over 2,900 kgs of explosives, bomb-making material and 2 AK-series weapons so far — was as innocuous as a few Jaish posters that had come up secretly in Nowgam, Srinagar in mid-October.The Jaish posters threatening attacks on security forces — common until 2019 but a rare occurrence now — fuelled the curiosity of Srinagar SSP G V Sundeep Chakravarthy, who had also led the J&K police component in Operation Mahadev that neutralised the three Pahalgam attackers. He insisted on finding out who put up the posters; and CCTV camera footage nailed three overground workers with a history of stone-pelting. They were arrested and their interrogation led the police to a cleric in Shopian, Maulvi Irfan Ahmad. Irfan’s questioning would, over the next 2-3 weeks, unveil a sinister Jaish plot — with links across J&K, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh — leading to a string of arrests.
Those arrested so far include Kashmiri doctors working at Faridabad’s Al-Falah University, Muzammil Ganaie hailing from Pulwama; Adeel Ahmad Rather, originally from Qazigund but picked up from Saharanpur; and Dr Shaheen Sayeed hailing from Lucknow and Muzammil’s purported girlfriend. A fourth doctor, Dr Umar, who hails from Pulwama, is however absconding; an look out circular has been opened against him. Also in custody are the three overground workers behind the Nowgam posters; Hafiz Mohd Ishtiyak, a Mewat cleric who arranged the logistics in Faridabad; Maulvi Irfan and his aide from Ganderbal Zameer Ahmad Ahanger alias Mutlasha who led the J&K police to Muzammil.All the accused arrested in Haryana or UP have been brought to J&K and are being interrogated.Though Maulvi was not talking initially, a mobile device picked up from his house showed a Telegram channel operated by Pakistan-based Jaish terrorist Umar bin Khattab, confirming that he was in touch with Irfan. One of Irfan’s terror recruits, Mutlasha, also came under the scanner for being part of another pan-India terror chat group by the name Farzandan e Darul Uloom Deoband. Irfan eventually said he had seen an AK-47 in the house of a doctor he had radicalised. Mutlasha confirmed the identity of the doctor as Dr Muzammil Ganaie. Muzammil was traced to Al-Falah University in Faridabad, Haryana, where he was working with Dr Adeel and Dr Umar. The module was amassing explosives like fertiliser-based ammonium nitrate and bomb-making material including timers, detonators, batteries etc and storing them in two separate houses in Faridabad. Ishtiaq had the key to one of these houses.While one house was found stocked with 358 kg of explosives, the other held 2,563 kg of explosive material packed in 88 bags. An AK-47 was recovered from Adeel’s locker in GMC Srinagar and another from Dr Shaheen. Muzammil had hidden the gun in her car but she panicked after his arrest and threw it in a dustbin in Faridabad; it was later recovered by the police.Though interrogation is underway to establish how these explosives were to be used, investigators suspect a conspiracy to carry out terror attacks in the hinterland, with Delhi an obvious target given its proximity to Faridabad. “Idea was to use the cover of being medical professionals to escape suspicion. Given the massive quantity of explosives and other bomb-making material, it seems they were collected over two years,” an officer connected with the investigation told TOI.
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