Kashmir on Wednesday witnessed a sweeping escalation in the crackdown on a purported militant support network in the wake of the Delhi blast, with hundreds of raids carried out across the region during which hundreds of people were believed to have been detained.
The alleged involvement of at least three Kashmiri doctors in what police call a “white-collar terror network” has unusually put doctors and other professionals under the scanner, setting the swoop apart from similar operations that had followed the Pahalgam terror attack in April.
Officials in Kashmir have so far confirmed the arrest of only seven individuals, including two doctors and a cleric — Shopian resident Molvi Irfan Ahmad Wagay.
The police suspect Wagay, who worked as a paramedic at a Srinagar hospital, was a key figure in the network who helped identify susceptible professionals for their induction into the module.
The police said they had attached the house of former Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar chief Mian Abdul Qayoom, who they accused of being a “Pakistani agent and terrorist”.
Qayoom is already under arrest for his alleged role in the killing of fellow lawyer Babar Qadri — a charge he has denied.
“Nalin Prabhat, DG-P, orders the attachment of the property of Pakistani agent and terrorist Mian Qayoom!,” Jammu and Kashmir police said on X.
The police said they took the fresh action against Qayoom in connection with an FIR related to a 2009 seminar organised to observe the birth anniversary of Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Qayoom is alleged to have delivered anti-India speeches and raised pro-secession slogans at the event.
Although the action is unrelated to the crackdown, it appears the government intends to send a tough message amid the ongoing swoop.
Multiple police statements suggested the banned separatist organisation Jamaat-e-Islami was the main target of Wednesday’s crackdown, although sources said a number of doctors and other professionals had been questioned in the past two days. The police are officially tight-lipped about the questioning.
The sources said the raids following the November 10 Red Fort blast were part of a crackdown that had begun last month after the police found posters of militant outfits Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Ansar Ghazwatul Hind (AGuH) in Srinagar city.
On November 8, the police had conducted extensive searches across the Valley, including at the central jail in Srinagar and the district jail in Kupwara.
The police said on Wednesday that “major, well-coordinated” operations were launched in almost all districts of Kashmir overnight and during the day — including in Srinagar, Pulwama, Kulgam, Ganderbal, Shopian, Bandipora, Budgam and Anantnag.
Kulgam police said 200 houses and premises of Jamaat-e-Islami members and their associates were raided as part of efforts to dismantle the terror ecosystem and its support structure at the grassroots level. The district officials put the number of cordon-and-search operations conducted in the past few days at over 400.
These operations have led to the interrogation of 500 individuals affiliated to Jammu and Kashmir Nationals Operating from Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and other banned outfits, “many of whom have been shifted to the district jail in Mattan, Anantnag, under preventive laws”.
Police personnel raid a house as part of a search operation following the blast near Delhi's Red Fort, in Anantnag, Jammu and Kashmir, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. Armed officers in tactical gear are seen entering a residential premises. PTI
Although the police in other districts did not reveal the scale of the operations, sources said 150 residences — mostly of former militants, separatist sympathisers and suspected stone-pelters — were raided in Srinagar city.
Earlier in the day, reports surfaced that one more doctor from south Kashmir had been arrested in connection with the module. But his father later denied his arrest and said he was only questioned and later released around midnight.
The father claimed he was questioned in connection with the “source of funding” of a cold storage set up by the family and denied it had anything to do with the white-collar militant module.
Former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti expressed concern about the developments, saying if the allegations of the involvement of Valley doctors in a terror module were true, it should be a “moment of worry” for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. She said it would create problems for Muslims, particularly those from Jammu and Kashmir, in the country.
“It was a very sad incident, and what is even more painful is that some of our doctors from Kashmir are being named. These are among the most intelligent and educated people of our society — the architects of the nation,” she said. “If proven true, it suggests not only are our best brains being wasted, but it also brings a big stain upon us.”