NIA arrests 'co-conspirator' who provided tech support for Red Fort blast

The NIA said that the accused was an "active co-conspirator behind the attack and had worked closely with the terrorist to plan the terror carnage"

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday said it has arrested another “key associate” of Dr Umar un Nabi, the suspected terrorist behind the Red Fort car bomb blast that claimed 13 lives.

 

The accused, Jasir Bilal Wani alias Danish, 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 probe agency said.

 

It added that Wani, who is a resident of Qazigund in Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), was an "active co-conspirator behind the attack and had worked closely with the terrorist, Nabi, to plan the terror carnage".

 

Wani was arrested in Srinagar by an NIA team, the agency said, adding that 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. 

 

This comes a day after the agency arrested Amir Rashid Ali, also a Kashmiri resident, for allegedly conspiring with Nabi to carry out the attack. Earlier in the day, a Delhi court granted Ali’s custody to the NIA for 10 days.

 

While announcing Ali’s arrest, the NIA described Nabi, who was allegedly behind the wheel when the car exploded near the Red Fort, as a “suicide bomber”. It was also the first time the agency referred to the bomb as a “vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (IED)”, according to PTI. 

Red Fort blast

On November 10, investigators said they had exposed a “white-collar terror module” active in J&K, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The operation led to the recovery of nearly 2,900 kilograms of explosives and the arrest of eight people, including three doctors. Just hours after the discovery, a Hyundai i20 driven slowly by Nabi near the Red Fort metro station was torn apart by a powerful blast that killed 13 people and injured several others.