3 J&K, UP docs among 8 held in ‘white-collar’ terror module

The Jammu and Kashmir Police on Monday said it had busted a “white collar” inter-state terror module and arrested eight persons, including three doctors, and seized over 2,900 kg of material used to make improvised explosive device (IED).

Terming the operation a major counter-terrorism success, officials said the module involved Pakistani terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Al-Qaeda offshoot Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, while the raids spanned Kashmir, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

The officials said the action started as the J&K Police were investigating a case relating to JeM posters carrying threats to security personnel coming up at different locations in Srinagar’s Bunpora Nowgam. Sources said the investigation into the poster case revealed a “major terror network”, which surprised the police.

A senior J&K Police official told The Tribune that the investigation led to the arrest of Dr Muzamil Ahmad Ganai, alias Musaib, who belonged to Koil in Pulwama and had been working at the privately run UGC-recognised Al-Falah University at Dhauj in Faridabad for the past three and a half years. A woman doctor from UP and working in the university’s hospital, Shahin Shahid, has also been arrested.

Dr Adeel Majeed Rather, who was working in Uttar Pradesh and belonged to Qazigund in south Kashmir, is the third doctor to be arrested. His arrest led to the recovery of an AK-47 rifle kept inside a locker at the Government Medical College in Anantnag where he worked as a resident doctor in 2024. The police have been investigating how he managed to keep the locker even after leaving the medical college long ago.

A J&K Police spokesperson said when the case was registered at Srinagar’s Nowgam police station, the investigation revealed a “white-collar terror ecosystem involving radicalised professionals and students who were in touch with foreign handlers based in Pakistan and other countries”.

The police said the group had been using encrypted channels for indoctrination, coordination, fund movement and logistics. “The funds were raised through professional and academic networks, under the guise of social and charitable causes. The accused were found involved in identifying persons, radicalising and recruiting them into terrorist ranks, besides raising funds, arranging logistics, procurement of arms and ammunition and material for preparing IEDs,” the police said.

Among those arrested are Arif Nisar Dar, Yasir-ul-Ashraf, Maqsood Ahmad Dar, all from Nowgam; Irfan Ahmad, a cleric at a mosque in Shopian; and Zameer Ahmad Ahanger from Wakura Ganderbal in central Kashmir.

The police said the role of a few more individuals had surfaced and raids had been conducted at multiple locations in Srinagar, Anantnag, Ganderbal and Shopian.

Addressing the media in Faridabad, Police Commissioner Satender Kumar Gupta confirmed Dr Muzamil’s arrest and the recovery of over 2,900 kg of material used for making explosives. The police are also questioning other doctors and employees at the university. “The operation is ongoing. We are questioning some other suspects,” said the Police Commissioner.

The Haryana Police, however, were yet to reveal how the explosives reached Faridabad. Sources said the 10-day Baba Bageshwar Sanatan Ekta Yatra traversing Haryana, UP and Delhi could have been the target.

According to the police, Dr Muzamil was arrested on October 30 and taken to J&K on transit remand. After the interrogation, a J&K Police team returned to Faridabad on Saturday and visited the university campus along with the local police.

Sources said the ammonium nitrate consignment was sent to Dr Muzamil nearly a month before his arrest. After hiding the explosive in a room at Dhuaj village (located about 500 metres from the university) that he rented recently for Rs 1,200, he never visited it again. On Sunday, the police recovered 358 kg of ammonium nitrate, a Krinkov assault rifle with three magazines, a pistol with two cartridges, 91 live cartridges, two magazines, 20 timers, four batteries, 24 remote controls, electrical circuits, batteries, wires, metal seat, etc, from the room. Most of the explosives and ammunition were kept in 12 suitcases.

On Monday, the police team recovered 2,563 kg of material used to make explosives from another room in a house owned by a Mewat cleric, Ishtaq, in Fatehpur Taga village, about 4 km from Dhauj. The cleric too has been detained.