Delhi suicide bomber glorifies act in video found in his phone recovered from brother

Over a week after the car bomb blast near Delhi’s Red Fort claimed 15 lives and left several others injured, a purported video of the suicide bomber, Dr Umer un-Nabi, surfaced on Tuesday in which he is seen discussing “suicide bombing” and describing it as a “martyrdom operation”.

The nearly two-minute-long clip, which went viral on social media, appeared to have been recorded by Umer before he went into hiding as the Jammu and Kashmir Police busted the “white collar” terror module. Umer was driving the explosive-laden car that blasted outside Red Fort on November 10.

The video shows Umer struggling to articulate his thoughts clearly, often faltering throughout the recording, before abruptly concluding it. “One of the most misunderstood concepts is what has been labelled as suicide bombing.

It’s a martyrdom operation… in which an individual presumes he is going to die at a particular place and time… there are multiple contradictions and arguments surrounding the idea,” he is heard saying.

The clip is learnt to have been recorded by Umer in his mobile phone, which was recovered by the J&K Police after the detention and subsequent interrogation of the bomber’s brother Zahoor Illahi, officials said.

Initially feigning ignorance, Illahi eventually cracked under sustained questioning and told his interrogators that Umer, who was in Kashmir in October, had handed him the mobile phone with explicit instructions to “dump it in water” if any news about him surfaced, the officials said.

Illahi subsequently led the police team to the dumping spot. Though the handset was damaged, forensic experts managed to extract the vital data, which strongly indicates Umer’s deep radicalisation through exposure.

The videos were shot in April this year, with Umer, the 28-year-old doctor from Pulwama in Kashmir, speaking in a heavy accented voice. He described suicide bombings as “martyrdom operations” and asserted that “such actions were not only permissible, but were regarded as commendable within the context of jihad”, the officials said.

Umer was working at a private hospital run by Al Falah University at Dhauj in Haryana’s Faridabad and was learnt to be the most radicalised in the module. He disappeared soon after his colleague Dr Muzammil Ahmad Ganaie was arrested, which led to the recovery of over 2,900 kg of material used to manufacture improvised explosive devices in Faridabad.

A senior security official told The Tribune that the viral video was among a few others found in the phone.

Investigation agencies have revealed that Umer was “highly radicalised” and would openly discuss “suicide bombing” with his associates. Investigators have also been probing how Umer, even while in hiding, managed to procure explosives and assemble the device used in the blast. Sources said Zahoor was being questioned about his “role” in the blast and whether he was aware about his brother’s terror plot.