Red Fort car blast probe: Doctors’ module planned attacks on global coffee chain outlets

Nine people have been arrested including the three doctors

• Red Fort suicide blast tied to larger terror plot against coffee chain outlets
• Three doctors arrested; accused sought to revive al-Qaeda offshoot AguH in India
• NIA now leads probe; nine arrested, explosives and weapons recovered

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Investigators probing the November 10, 2025, car-borne suicide blast near the Red Fort that left more than a dozen people dead have unearthed details of a broader plot that went beyond the eventual attack.

A group of doctors arrested in the case had allegedly discussed striking outlets of a global coffee chain in Delhi and other major cities, a government source told The Hindu.

According to the reported source, the accused believed the brand symbolised opposition to Israel, as its founder is Jewish, and saw such attacks as a way to signal protest against Israel’s military operations in Gaza. “By attacking the coffee chain outlets in Delhi and other major Indian cities, the accused wanted to send a message against Israel’s military action in Gaza,” the source has been quoted to say.

The three doctors -- Muzamil Ahmad Ganaie and Adeel Ahmed Rather from Jammu and Kashmir, and Shaheen Saeed from Uttar Pradesh -- are part of what officials describe as a “white collar terror module” that had been functioning for nearly four years. During questioning, they allegedly told investigators that there had been an internal disagreement with Umar-Un-Nabi, the suicide attacker who died in the explosion, over the selection of targets.

Some members of the group, the report citing source said, wanted the operation to remain limited to assaults on security forces in Jammu and Kashmir, while others advocated high-visibility civilian targets outside the region.

Links to al-Qaeda offshoot and JeM

Senior officials say the module also aimed to revive Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AguH), the Indian branch of al-Qaeda. The outfit was founded by Zakir Musa, who was killed in an encounter with security forces in 2019 in south Kashmir’s Tral. After the death of its last known commander, Muzamil Ahmad Tantray, in 2021, the organisation had largely fallen silent.

The accused doctors, according to officials, wanted to resurrect the group and “establish Islamic law in the country.” The Red Fort blast is now being examined in the context of these alleged revival efforts.

The trail leading to the module began weeks before the explosion. On October 19, 2025, a pamphlet attributed to the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) surfaced in Srinagar, urging residents not to cooperate with the police and to deny them entry into their shops. The JeM is a banned Pakistan-based terror organisation.

This prompted Jammu and Kashmir Police to launch a 20-day investigation into a suspected terror network linked to both JeM and AguH. The probe led officers to a cleric in Shopian and eventually to a series of raids in Faridabad on November 9 and November 10, during which large quantities of explosives and sophisticated weapons were recovered.

Bomb-making, video evidence, and NIA probe

Officials said the accused relied heavily on online material to learn how to fabricate explosives. “The accused watched online videos and intended to create bombs from scratch. That is why thousands of kilos of urea bags were recovered from them. They had experimented a lot by mixing various chemicals, ensuring that the bombs are prepared from locally available materials, thereby not raising any red flags,” a source has been quoted.

Another official stated that Nabi likely assembled around 40 kg of explosives in haste inside the car that later detonated near the Red Fort. The hurried preparation, the official suggested, may have been triggered by the arrest of other members of the module.

Earlier, police recovered a 1.20-minute video clip from one of Nabi’s phones, which had been dumped in a ditch near his house in Pulwama. In the clip, he is seen speaking about “martyrdom operations” in a heavy English accent. Investigators also found multiple similar videos on the device.

The case has since been taken over by the National Investigation Agency. So far, nine people have been arrested, including the three doctors, as agencies continue to piece together the scope of the alleged conspiracy and its links to multiple extremist outfits.