Srinagar: When a Jammu and Kashmir Police team investigating the Jaish-e-Mohammad poster case whisked away Irfan Ahmad Wagay from his home in Shopian district last month, they had little premonition of what they were going to stumble into.

Wagay, 31, is a Class 5 graduate, who obtained ‘Hafiz-e-Quran’, ’Alim’ and ‘Fazil’ degrees from an Islamic seminary in Pinjoora village of Shopian. He blew the cover of other members of the alleged terror module whose tentacles appear to be spread across north India, Pakistan and perhaps beyond also, according to J&K police investigation.

Wagay, who is from Nandigam village of Shopian, used to lead five-time prayers at Hazrat Ali mosque in Nowgam locality of J&K’s capital Srinagar from 2021 till around three weeks ago when he went home on a weekend and didn’t return. 

He also used to teach the Quran to young school-going children in a room adjacent to the mosque from where some of the threatening posters were allegedly recovered by the Srinagar police.

“He was appointed as the imam in 2021 and we shared his credentials with the police at that time only,” said Farooq Ahmad, president of the mosque. 

“It is hard to believe that such a capable Imam whose sermons focused only on social issues could do something so ugly. Initially we felt that he was being framed but with new disclosures being made every day, he should be punished if he has indulged in any wrongdoing,” he added.

Wagay was arrested after J&K police filed a case on October 19 in connection with the posters, purportedly issued by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terror outfit, which were found in parts of Srinagar’s Nowgam locality.

In a statement, the J&K police said that Wagay was part of a “white collar terror ecosystem” linked with Jaish-e-Mohammad and Al-Qaeda-backed Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind outfits. 

The police statement said that the suspected operatives of the ‘terror module’ “radicalised professionals and students in contact with foreign handlers, operating from Pakistan and other countries”.

First breakthrough

Investigators made the first breakthrough in the case when a CCTV footage in Nowgam showed three local youngsters – Arif Nisar Dar, Yasir-ul-Ashraf and Maqsood Ahmad Dar – pasting the threatening posters in their locality.

After their arrest, the trio is believed to have disclosed to the investigators that they were working at the behest of Wagay.

A police source privy to the probe told The Wire that Wagay revealed details on the very next day of his arrest when he was confronted with his phone records which allegedly showed that he was in touch with at least two to three terror handlers based in Pakistan through Telegram.

“It was a sophisticated operation and things have been concealed from everyone,” the source said, without disclosing more details. “Wagay was a key player in the dissemination of posters and he opened the canvas of the probe by leading the investigators to Zameer Ahmad, a youngster from Ganderbal who is believed to have arranged logistics for the group,” they added.

When Ahmad was arrested by Srinagar police, the name of Dr Muzzamil Shakeel Ganai, a native of Koil village in south Kashmir and a resident doctor at Faridabad’s Al-Falah University, also surfaced in the probe.

Dr Ganai was the first doctor to be arrested in the case, reportedly, on October 30. 

The police source said that the probe also cast a wide spotlight on Dr Adeel Ahmad Rather, a resident of Kulgam in south Kashmir who was working at a private hospital in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur for a monthly salary of Rs 4 lakh.

“The two doctors were in touch with their handlers across the border and with each other on Telegram,” the source said. 

Dr Rather who became the second Kashmiri doctor to be arrested in the case is son of a senior revenue department official from south Kashmir who died in the Covid pandemic. 

A rifle was allegedly recovered from his personal locker in Government Medical College in Anantnag where he worked as a senior resident and quit in October last year. 

It was not immediately known why the locker remained unopened for the last one year. 

His two other siblings are also doctors and at least one of them – Dr Muzaffar – is based in Dubai and is also under the radar. 

Race against time

On November 10, as the J&K police and its counterparts from Faridabad claimed to have recovered a stockpile of more than 2,900 kilograms of ammonium nitrate and other bomb-making materials from two rooms rented by Dr Ganai on the outskirts of Faridabad, a car exploded near Red Fort in Delhi. 

The explosion killed 13 people and injured many more, turning the spotlight on the Hyundai i20 car which was blown into smithereens by the blast whose cause remains unknown.

As per the ongoing probe by J&K police, Amir Rashid, a young man from Pulwama travelled from Kashmir to Delhi last month with Umar Nabi, another Kashmiri doctor and a resident of Dr Ganai’s native village of Koil. 

“Rashid was known to Nabi after their ‘chance’ meeting at a hospital in Srinagar some years ago. After exchanging numbers, the two stayed in touch and bonded very well. Even though Nabi possessed a valid driving license, he lied to Rashid and convinced him to come to Delhi to help him buy a car,” the source said.

The car, registered in Haryana, was bought from a dealer in Faridabad in the last week of October after which Rashid returned to Kashmir. 

“The police scrutinised the phone numbers in the sale deed which led them to Rashid who disclosed that it was Nabi who had purchased the car,” the source said. 

Investigators have now recovered a Ford car allegedly used by Nabi, a bright student, son of a government teacher who quit his job in 2012. His family also comprises his mother, two brothers and a sister.

The police are also on the search for a third car, a Maruti Brezza, which is also believed to be linked to the Delhi blast case. Dr Shaheen Shahid, a female doctor from Lucknow who also worked at Al Falah university, has also been arrested in the case.

With investigators racing against time to apprehend the other suspected members of the group, it seems that Nabi’s journey – from a hard-working student and a promising doctor at J&K’s most prestigious medical college to the ‘main accused’ in the Red Fort blast case – would be described largely in speculative narratives.

Nabi has not officially been declared dead. Some news reports indicate that a DNA test carried out on his mother has matched with the samples lifted from the car which exploded in the national capital on the ill-fated evening.  

According to sources, Nabi, who lost contact with his family on November 6 and has been absconding since a J&K police team carried out a raid in Faridabad somewhere between November 6-8, was caught on CCTV exiting a mosque in the national capital before the blast.

A previous version of the story had erroneously identified the alleged associate of Dr Umar Nabi as Umar Rashid, which was corrected to Amir Rashid on November 16. The error is regretted.

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