The National Investigation Agency has arrested a 32-year-old Faridabad resident for allegedly sheltering and providing logistical support to Dr Umar un Nabi, the suicide bomber who was driving the Hyundai i20 that exploded near Delhi’s Red Fort on November 10, killing 13 people.
Agency sources said Mohammad Soyab, a resident of Faridabad’s Dhauj village, is suspected to have harboured Nabi in the days preceding the attack and assisted him with “critical logistical arrangements”.
He is the seventh person to be arrested in the case so far.
“A probe has suggested Soyab provided support and logistics to Nabi. His interrogation will help us map out the wider support network that enabled the bomber,” said an NIA official.
Nabi worked at Al Falah Hospital in Haryana’s Faridabad with his colleagues Dr Muzammil Ahmad Ganai and Dr Shaheen Sayeed. All three are accused of links with the Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed.
Hours before the car explosion, security agencies had busted the terror module linked with the JeM and the Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH) and spanning Kashmir, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, recovering nearly 3,000kg of bomb-making material suspected to be ammonium nitrate from two rooms rented by Muzammil outside the university campus in Faridabad.
The NIA had earlier arrested Muzammil, Sayeed, another doctor, Adeel Ahmad Rather, Mufti Irfan Ahmad Wagay, Amir Rashid Ali, in whose name the car used in the blast was registered, and Jasir Bilal Wani alias Danish, who had allegedly provided technical aid to Nabi.
Sources said the suspects belonging to the Jaish “white-collar” terror module were allegedly planning Pulwama-like attacks in the national capital and other parts of the country.
The probe by the NIA has indicated a concerning shift in cross-border terror strategy where highly educated professionals were groomed entirely through digital means by handlers operating from Pakistan and other parts of the world, sources said.
“The agency continues to pursue various leads in connection with the suicide
bombing, and has been conducting searches across states in coordination with the respective police forces to identify and track others involved in the gruesome attack,” the NIA said in a statement on Wednesday.
Last week, the Enforcement Directorate arrested Jawad Ahmad Siddiqui, chairman and founder of the Al Falah Group, on charges of money laundering.
The Haryana-based university has come under the scanner after three doctors working there emerged as suspects in the blast. They were allegedly part of the “white-collar” terror module.