Delhi blast flags perils of homegrown terror

In the spring of 2000, 17-year-old Afaq Ahmed Shah, radicalised by then newly formed Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror group, rammed an explosive-laden car into Badami Bagh Cantonment, the headquarters of the Indian Army’s Chinar (XV) Corps, in Srinagar, killing two soldiers and injuring others.

- Shishir Gupta

On February 14, 2019, another JeM recruit, Adil Ahmad Dar, 19, detonated his explosive-laden vehicle into a CRPF convoy in Pulwama in South Kashmir, killing 42 security personnel on the spot.

While India’s security establishment is well-versed with Islamist suicide bombers, the suicide bombing by Umar un Nabi, a 36-year-old medical doctor from Pulwama, near Red Fort in the national capital on November 10, has opened a new chapter of Islamic radicalisation and terrorism in India. Unlike the Indian Mujahideen (IM) terror group, which was a false flag operation by Pakistan using young Indians from the hinterland, the Pulwama-Faridabad medical doctor terror module appears to be a homegrown unit with an affiliation towards the radical Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind ideology, which focuses on establishing Dar-ul-Islam in India. While IM leaders such as Riyaz Bhatkal, Sadiq Israr Sheikh, Shahnawaz Alam, Asadullah Akhtar Haddi (he was trained in orthopaedics), and Mirza Shadab Baig were all educated and belonged to good families, they were radicalised by Pakistan under the Karachi Project and weaponised against India from 2005 to 2010, killing nearly a thousand innocents using improvised ammonium nitrate-fuel oil-timer devices made by Pakistan deep-state-trained Ariz Khan and Iqbal Bhatkal.