NEW DELHI, Nov 18: In a chilling self-recorded video, Dr Umar Un Nabi, the man behind the wheels of the car that exploded near the iconic Red Fort on November 10 Killing 13 people and injuring 30 others, seems to be justifying his action equating suicide bombing with “martyrdom” since suicide is strictly prohibited in Islam.
The video believed to have been shot about a week before the Delhi blast, gives an indication of the suicide bomber’s thought process showing him talking about suicide bombing and “martyrdom.” The clip was on a phone Nabi had given to his brother at their house in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama earlier this month. The video also makes it clear that the Delhi car blast had been carefully planned and negates the initial speculations that it may have been triggered inadvertently while transporting the explosives.
“One of the very misunderstood concepts is the concept of what has been labelled as suicide bombing. It is a martyrdom operation… known in Islam. Now, there are multiple contradictions; there are multiple arguments that have been brought against it,” the young doctor is heard saying in the video. He adds in the video that a “martyrdom” operation is one in which a person presumes that he is going to die at a particular place and time. Umar also says that no one can predict exactly when or where they will die, and that it will happen if it is destined. He adds, “Don’t fear death.”
Suicide is forbidden in Islam, and Umar appears to be justifying suicide bombing as an act of “martyrdom” in the video. In the video, Umar speaks English with an accent and is quite articulate. What he says reveals that he thought in-depth about subjects such as suicide bombing and “martyrdom”, suggesting that he had been completely radicalised. This video shows a calm, composed man justifying a heinous act. The video also shows the new face of terrorism in India: educated, radicalised, and calculative.
The conspiracy behind the Delhi blast has revealed that terrorist organisations such as Jaish-e-Mohammed are now recruiting highly educated professionals, such as doctors. Earlier this month, shortly after a massive explosives recovery from Faridabad, the Jammu and Kashmir police had said they had busted an inter-state and transnational terror module linked with Jaish-e-Mohammad and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind.
“The investigation has revealed a white collar terror ecosystem, involving radicalized professionals and students in contact with foreign handlers, operating from Pakistan and other countries. The group has been using encrypted channels for indoctrination, coordination, fund movement and logistics. Funds were raised through professional and academic networks, under the guise of social/charitable causes,” it said.
Ever since the video of Nabi’s “martyrdom operations” emerged on Tuesday, speculation has been rife about when it was shot and the sequence of events leading up to the bombing. Sources said a week before Nabi carried out the attack on November 10, he had visited the family’s house in Pulwama. Before he left for Faridabad, where he worked at the Al Falah University as an assistant professor in the General Medicine department, Nabi handed over one of his two phones to his brother.
The sources said the brother heard about the arrest of Nabi’s colleagues at the Al Falah University, Dr Adeel Ahmed Rather – for putting up posters linked to a terror outfit in Srinagar – on November 7, and then Dr Muzammil Shakeel – in connection with an explosives haul in Faridabad – on November 9. The next day, before the bombing near the Red Fort, he found out Dr Shaheen Saeed had also been arrested.
“He knew they were his brother’s colleagues and friends and said he had heard the police were looking for Nabi as well,” said a source. Nabi’s brother panicked and dumped the phone in a pond near their house in Pulwama. When investigators tried to trace the two phones they knew Nabi had, they found both of them were switched off, with their last known locations in Delhi and Pulwama.
Investigators then reached Nabi’s house in Pulwama and, after sustained questioning, the brother revealed a phone had been given to him, and he had dumped it in a pond. The suicide bombing in Delhi, the sources said, was carried out while the questioning was on and the phone was recovered only after that.
“The phone had sustained water damage and the motherboard was also malfunctioning. We managed to recover Nabi’s video only a few days later,” said a source. The video emerged publicly on Tuesday and shows Nabi justifying suicide bombings, despite taking one’s life being forbidden in Islam, and calling them acts of “martyrdom.”
Sources had earlier said the video was shot by Nabi in room number 13 of building number 17 in the sprawling Al Falah University. This very room is where the radicalised doctors, who allegedly have links with the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, made their plans, which involved 2,900 kg of explosives recovered from a room rented in Dr Muzammil Shakeel’s name.
“This would, thus, mean that the video is at least from a week before the blast, and could be much older still. It is not clear from the clip whether Nabi was talking about a suicide bombing he was planning to carry out or talking to others whom his module was trying to radicalise,” said an official.
(Manas Dasgupta)
