Delhi blast case: NIA arrests another man for allegedly harbouring driver of car that exploded
This took the number of arrests in the matter to eight.
The National Investigation Agency on Tuesday arrested another man for allegedly harbouring and providing logistical support to Umar Nabi, the doctor who was believed to have been driving the car that exploded in Delhi on November 10.
The central agency identified the eighth person arrested in the case as Bilal Naseer Malla from Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla. He was also accused of destroying evidence related to the terror attack.
Malla was arrested by an NIA team in the national capital.`
The blast near the Red Fort metro station left 13 persons dead. Two days after the explosion, the Union government described it as a “terrorist incident”.
On November 16, the central agency arrested an aide allegedly linked to Nabi, who was identified as Amir Rashid Ali. The NIA alleged that the Hyundai i20 car used in the blast was registered in Ali’s name. This was the first arrest in the case.
A day later, the NIA arrested another alleged associate of the doctor, Jasir Bilal Wani alias Danish, from Srinagar. Wani is a resident of Qazigund in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag.
On November 20, four more persons were arrested. They were identified as Muzammil Shakeel Ganai from Pulwama, Adeel Ahmed Rather from Anantnag, Mufti Irfan Ahmad Wagay from Shopian and Shaheen Saeed from Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow.
Another man, identified as Soyab from Dhauj in Haryana’s Faridabad, was the seventh person arrested in the case on November 26. He was also accused of harbouring and providing logistical support to Nabi.
The NIA on Tuesday said that it was continuing with its investigation “into the conspiracy” behind the terror act. It added that it was working closely with various central and state agencies in the matter.
Hours before the blast, the police said that it had cracked an “inter-state and transnational terror module” in Faridabad and Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur.
The police said at the time that it had recovered 2,900 kg of improvised explosive device-making material in raids in several states.
The NIA has been conducting raids at locations in Jammu and Kashmir in the backdrop of the blast and the terror module case.
Also read: How a Kashmir probe into Jaish posters nearly unmasked Delhi blast plot
