Delhi blast: NIA says terror group planned to overthrow govt, impose Sharia
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The National Investigation Agency on Thursday alleged that the terror group behind the November 10 blast near Red Fort had planned to overthrow the Indian government and impose Sharia, or Islamic law, in the country.
The explosion near the Red Fort metro station had killed 11 persons and injured several others. Umar Un Nabi, a doctor believed to have been driving the vehicle that exploded, was among those killed. Two days after the blast, the Union government had termed the incident a terrorist attack.
On Thursday, the NIA filed a chargesheet before a Delhi court against 10 accused in the case. Besides Nabi, the chargesheet named Aamir Rashid Mir, Jasir Bilal Wani, Muzamil Shakeel, Adeel Ahmed Rather, Shaheen Saeed, Mufti Irfan Ahmad Wagay, Soyab, Bilal Naseer Malla and Yasir Ahmad Dar.
The agency said Nabi’s identity had been confirmed through DNA fingerprinting.
According to the NIA, all the accused were linked to Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, an offshoot of Al Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent, which has been designated a terrorist organisation in India since June 2018.
The accused have been charged under the 1967 Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the 1908 Explosive Substances Act, the 1959 Arms Act and the 1984 Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act.
The chargesheet is based on investigations carried out across Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and the Delhi-National Capital Region. The NIA said the evidence includes over 580 witness testimonies, more than 390 documents and over 200 items seized during searches.
Hours before the November 10 explosion, police had claimed to have busted an “inter-state and transnational terror module” during raids in Faridabad, Haryana, and Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh. Authorities had then stated that around 2,900 kg of improvised explosive device-making material was recovered during operations across multiple states.
On Thursday, the NIA said it had “unravelled a major jihadi conspiracy”. The agency alleged that the accused were radicalised by the ideology of terror outfits and had reconstituted Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind as “AGuH Interim” in 2022 after a failed attempt to migrate to Afghanistan through Turkey.
“Under the umbrella of the newly constituted outfit, they had launched ‘Operation Heavenly Hind’ aimed at overthrowing the democratically established Indian government and imposing Sharia rule,” the agency alleged.
The NIA further claimed that the accused recruited new members, propagated the outfit’s violent ideology, stockpiled weapons and manufactured explosives using commercially available chemicals.
Investigators also alleged that the group was planning to expand its activities to other parts of the country.
According to the agency, the accused had illegally procured prohibited weapons, including an AK-47 rifle, a Krinkov rifle and country-made pistols along with live ammunition.
The NIA alleged that the group had also experimented with rocket and drone-mounted improvised explosive devices with the aim of targeting security establishments in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of India.
The agency added that efforts were underway to trace other individuals whose alleged involvement in terror activities had emerged during the investigation.
