Faridabad 'Module' & Delhi Blast: It All Began With 'Notorious' Posters in J&K

The probe which originated with the Nowgam police station eventually led to linking the Faridabad terror module.

According to police, its investigations into the Delhi blast has revealed a “white-collar terror ecosystem". 

(Photo: Altered by Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

The Delhi blast story seems to begin not on 10 November, but on 19 October when the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Police was alerted of the appearance of pro-militant posters in the Bonpora locality in Nowgam on the outskirts of Srinagar city.

What followed was a hectic pursuit of multiple leads with several loose ends to tie. The investigations, which originated with the Nowgam police station in Srinagar, acquired a greater intensity over the days, with other police units across the country joining the probe.

The probe eventually led to the unravelling of an alleged terrorist plot, culminating in the seizure of around 2,900 kg of explosives and weaponry in Haryana's Faridabad, and a blast at a busy junction in New Delhi that killed at least 13 people.

Senior J&K Police officials now say the two incidents are connected, as the individuals whose names have prominently surfaced in each case were known to be close associates.

“We had been running a parallel investigation into this,” a senior J&K police officer told The Quint. “We found that they were interconnected.”

The Probe Began with 'Mischievous' Posters

One of the accused is Dr Umar Nabi, the alleged terrorist who was driving the Hyundai i20 through a crowded stretch in New Delhi when the explosives he was reportedly relocating detonated.

The second is Dr Adeel Ahmed Rather, whose name surfaced during a police probe into a rare incident involving the posters linked to the banned terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).

“At first, the Nowgam posters seemed like the usual propaganda that terror outfits would circulate a few years ago, when their activities were rampant,” a senior security official told The Quint.

But once the agencies examined them closely, their suspicions grew stronger. At a time when such activities had largely disappeared from public view, the question arose—who was willing to stick their neck out now?

The J&K Police filed an FIR under:

• Relevant sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), including those pertaining to acts or attempts to commit acts of terror

• Sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) pertaining to acts or attempts at conspiracy or waging or abetting war against India, or endangering the sovereignty, unity, and integrity of India

• Sections 4 and 5 of the Explosive Substances Act, 1908, pertaining to acts or attempts to cause an explosion and making and possessing explosives under suspicious circumstances, respectively, and

• Sections of the Arms Act, 1959, pertaining to possession and use of prohibited arms or ammunition without special authorisation from the Central government.

The Resurgence of an Al-Qaeda Affiliate?

According to the police, its investigations into the incident has revealed an alleged “white-collar terror ecosystem, involving radicalised professionals and students in contact with foreign handlers, operating from Pakistan and other countries.” 

The module, they said, is linked with the two proscribed groups—JeM and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGuH).

The latter is an affiliate of al-Qaeda and has been operating in Kashmir variously since 2017. Among its leading faces was Zakir Rashid or Zakir Musa, an engineer-turned-terrorist who was killed by the forces in May 2019.

After Musa’s killing, the AGuH’s activities had gradually declined. But the J&K Police claimed the group was now being run by their Pakistani handlers.

“The AGuH's founder in Kashmir was Zakir Musa, and Arif Lalhari was the last AGuH member we encountered in the Valley,” a senior officer explained. “But since 2023, the group has a Pakistan-based handler called Mustafa Abdul Karim.”

Alarmed by the appearance of pamphlets, the J&K police officials collected all the CCTV footage available from the nearby neighbourhoods, and closed in on the local suspects—among whom was a preacher of a mosque in Shopian—who were detained for questioning. “The interrogations yielded new information which led the police to Dr Adeel Ahmed Rather,” officials said.

A resident of Wanpora village in Kulgam district in South Kashmir, Rather is a doctor and was employed as a ‘senior resident’ at Government Medical College (GMC) in Anantnag until October last year. 

He wasn’t, however, at his home in Kashmir when the police found out about his involvement in the poster incident. Instead, a joint team of the Special Operations Group (SOG), Saharanpur police, and Srinagar police tracked him to a private hospital in Ambala Road in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur, where he was arrested on 6 November, and then moved to J&K after a local court approved his transit remand. 

When his locker inside GMC Anantnag was searched, the police discovered an AK47 assault rifle.

A 'Module' Led Entirely by Doctors

Dr Adeel Ahmed Rather's questioning by the police led the probe team to the sprawling facility of Al Falah University in Dhauj, Faridabad. The Haryana-based medical college has now taken a center stage in the entire investigation.

From the medical college, the police arrested Dr Muzamil Shakeel, a doctor affiliated with the institution, and Dr Shaheen Shahid Ansari, a 46-year-old Lucknow-born senior doctor. On 9 November, the Faridabad police had recovered weapons in a vehicle that belonged to Dr Shaheen Shahid Ansari. 

At the moment, she is in the custody of J&K Police, which is also probing the possibility of more individuals affiliated with the same module currently living in Uttar Pradesh.

It was based on Dr Muzamil Shakeel's interrogation that police lifted the cover off the Faridabad explosive haul, the discovery of which shook the entire nation.

“Both Dr Adeel and Dr Umar were known to each other and were even allegedly involved in collecting explosives,” the police sources said. “After his accomplice Dr Adeel was arrested from Saharanpur and their premises in Faridabad raided, he probably knew that their conspiracy was coming apart. So he moved incendiary material in the vehicle and ended up detonating the explosives.”

The CCTV videos circulating on social media show grainy footage of a masked person driving his white i20 car through a toll plaza in Haryana. Investigators were also promptly able to trace the original owner of the i20 car used in which the blast took place. The owner had sold the car to a resident of Okhla in New Delhi. It was from the latter that the car was purchased by a third person named Aamir Nabi, who then sold it to his brother, Dr Umar, accused of triggering the blast near Red Fort.

The sequence of events comes amid a massive crackdown by J&K Police against those considered 'J&K nationals operating in Pakistan'. The raids happening across J&K, Faridabad, and Saharanpur were simultaneous.

In total, around 12 persons have been arrested so far by the multiple teams of police for facilitating the terrorist recruitment, raising funds, arranging logistics and procuring arms and ammunition and materials for improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Senior officials in J&K confirmed that it was a multipronged operation involving numerous state and central agencies. 

“A team of best counter-insurgents from Kashmir had flown to Delhi on the same night that the blast happened,” a senior official said, adding, “The team was supposed to file a report in 24 hours.”

The Crackdown Across Valley

On 9 November, the counter-intelligence in Kashmir raided 10 locations across J&K “regarding the online glorification of terrorism and the radicalisation of youth.” The department said that the raids were the beginning of the heightened clampdown against “online terrorism and unlawful digital activity.”

Senior officials told The Quint that the raids were also part of the overall crackdown stemming from the surfacing of posters in Nowgam.

“Nine suspects, including one female, have been detained. A cache of incriminating evidence—ranging from SIM cards and mobile phones to tablets and a variety of digital devices—have been seized for forensic examination,” the statement read.

In Kulgam district alone, the security forces conducted 400 cordon and search operations and questioned around 500 people. Similar raids were conducted in Baramulla, Handwara, Sopore, Kulga, Pulwama and Awantipora. 

The Nowgam posters were recognisably associated with JeM, which had previously threatened attacks against the members of security forces.

“In fact, there was an input about the terrorist attack on Diwali,” a senior official said, on the condition of anonymity.

“It was because of the team work by security agencies, including the CID, Srinagar police, and SP Cargo, in developing the input, connecting the traces, and sharing those leads with other agencies that helped disrupt the terrorist conspiracy.”

‘Broken Windows’ Policing or Getting Caught Off Guard?

Terrorism experts believe that the case highlights how aggressive enforcement against seemingly trivial crimes can sometimes lead to the uncovering of a massive conspiracy. 

“This whole idea of broken policing entails that if you act against all the smaller, seemingly insignificant crimes, the mechanisation of larger crimes will become impossible,” explained Ajai Sahni, Executive Director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. 

“It is a widely debated strategy but in this case it has demonstrated to be very effective. Had the 350 kg of ammonium nitrate not been seized on time from Faridabad, it would have led to multiple explosions and hundreds of casualties.”

At the same time, the Delhi blast has raised questions about the government’s claim about the successes of “zero terror” policy in J&K.

Earlier this year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah revealed that there was no recruitment into the militant ranks in Kashmir in the first half of 2025. Those being killed in security operations in the Union Territory were all foreigners, he had said in the Parliament.

Critics have questioned the wisdom behind such pronouncements, especially in light of the Delhi blast.

“These are political statements. They are not statements of facts... We even had statements saying, ‘Every act of terrorism is going to be taken as an act of war. But they are misleading because there will never be absolute certainty that terrorist recruitment or terrorist radicalisation has come to an end.”

Ajai Sahni

Kin of Accused Struggle to Reconcile with Terror Charge

In Kashmir, the families of those accused of being involved in the blast, are struggling to come to terms with their arrests.

At the house of Dr Umar in Qoil village in Pulwama, his parents sat dead-pan against the brown wall. His father was overcome with emotion, and couldn’t speak.

“We are as shocked as everyone here,” a relative at the family gathering told The Quint. “The father is mentally unstable. That’s why he isn’t talking. We only knew Umar as a studious child. We are not familiar with any other side of him. The accusations against him have perturbed us as much as everyone else.”

As the hate-filled commentaries against them escalate on social media, many Kashmiris have questioned what they described as lack of sensitivity among the fellow citizens.

“You cannot judge a community based on the acts of three or four persons,” said Sahil Parray, a student leader from Anantnag district of South Kashmir.

“For every Kashmiri who may have been involved in wrongdoing, there are tens of thousands of talented professionals who have made their mark at top companies and private hospitals across the country.”

Sahil Parray

Parray, whose father is a retired cop, said that the J&K Police largely employs Kashmiri Muslim officers. “Even the officers who generated the input based on which the Faridabad conspiracy was unearthed were Kashmiri Muslims. There are an estimated 2 lakh people working within the police force. Are their families anti-national also?” he asked.

(Shakir Mir is an independent journalist reporting on news and politics form Srinagar, Kashmir.)