PTI | New Delhi
The NIA has arrested a second close aide of “suicide bomber” Dr Umar Nabi in the Red Fort area car blast case with the man from Kashmir being accused of allegedly providing technical support for carrying out terror attacks by modifying drones and attempting to make rockets.
The death toll in the November 10 car blast, meanwhile, rose to 15 after two more injured persons succumbed to their injuries at the LNJP Hospital here, an official said.
While the aide Jasir Bilal Wani, a resident of Qazigund in Anantnag, was described by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday as an “active co-conspirator” of Nabi, the anti-terror agency told a Delhi court that another key accused Amir Rashid Ali allegedly arranged a safe house and provided logistical support to the bomber.
The NIA on Sunday announced the arrest of Ali in whose name the explosive-laden i20 involved in the blast was registered. Ali, also a resident of Kashmir, was arrested from Delhi in the first arrest by the NIA in the blast case after the probe was handed over to the agency last week. The NIA has described Nabi as a “suicide bomber”.
The court allowed the NIA’s plea seeking custodial interrogation of the accused for 10 days.
As the NIA explored “various angles” to unravel the conspiracy behind the 10/11 bombing, Union Home Minister Amit Shah vowed to track down those responsible and asserted that the culprits would be found even from the depths of ‘Patal’ (netherworld) and face the strictest possible punishment.
Wani allegedly provided technical support for carrying out terror attacks by modifying drones and attempting to make rockets ahead of the deadly car bomb blast, the NIA said in a statement.
Wani, who also goes by the alias of Danish, was arrested from Srinagar by an NIA team, it said.
“The accused, a resident of Qazigund in Anantnag district of J&K, was an active co-conspirator behind the attack and had worked closely with the terrorist, Umar un Nabi, to plan the terror carnage,” it said. Nabi, a 28-year-old doctor from Pulwama, drove the car that detonated on the ill-fated day.
“Several teams of the anti-terror agency are pursuing multiple leads, and are conducting searches across states to identify every person involved in the terror attack.”
Jasir alias ‘Danish’, a bachelor in political sciences, was intensely brainwashed by Nabi for several months to become a suicide bomber, it was stated.
He had agreed to meet the ‘Doctor module’ in October last year at a mosque in Kulgam in Kashmir from where he was taken to a rented accommodation at the Al Falah University in Faridabad in Haryana.
Wani, who was earlier detained by Jammu and Kashmir, had told during his questioning that while others in the module wanted him to be an over-ground worker (OGW) for the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Nabi brainwashed him for several months to become a suicide bomber.
The plan, however, collapsed in April this year after the man backed out, citing his poor economic condition and the belief that suicide was forbidden in Islam.
The suicide bomber scouting plot adds a dangerous new dimension to the investigation into the inter-state terror network linked to the JeM.
