Quicksplained: Who is Dr Shaheen Shahid, the Lucknow doctor under NIA lens for role in Delhi blast case?

As the investigation into the blast at Red Fort on Monday (10 November) continues, authorities have confirmed the arrest of a woman doctor in the Faridabad explosives case.

Jammu and Kashmir Police, in concert with the Haryana Police, had recovered 2,900 kilos of explosives, including 350 kilos of ammonium nitrate, in Faridabad from Dr Muzammil Ahmad Ganaie, alias Musaib, a doctor from Kashmir’s Pulwama with suspected terror links, on Sunday.

Dr Shaheen Shahid has been arrested for allegedly being involved in a terror network spread across Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. Shahid has been transferred to Srinagar to be interrogated by the authorities. But what do we know about her?

Let’s take a closer look:

• Shahid is a resident of Lal Bagh in Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow.

• She is reportedly linked to Faridabad’s Al-Falah University, with which Ganaie is also affiliated as a professor.

• Shahid is said to be closely associated with Ganaie, the Kashmiri doctor arrested by authorities.

• She is accused of having links with several Pakistan-based terror outfits including Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Ansar Gazwat-ul Hind (AGuH).

• Authorities say Shahid was charged with setting up the Jamaat ul-Mominaat, the women’s wing of the JeM in India.

• The Jamaat ul-Mominaat is headed by Sadia Azhar, the sister of Masood Azhar. It was set up by the JeM in October.

• Sadia’s husband Yusuf, a mastermind of the Kandahar hijacking, was killed in Operation Sindoor.

• Authorities arrested Shahid after busting the JeM’s Faridabad module.

• The module had reportedly been tasked with carrying out terror attacks across several states.

• Authorities recovered an AK Krinkov rifle with three magazines, a pistol with live rounds, two empty cartridges, and two additional magazines from a Haryana-registered Swift Dzire car reportedly belonging to Shahid.

• Shahid was transported to Srinagar by air. She will now be grilled by Jammu and Kashmir Police.

• Authorities are now looking at her financial statements and messages to determine her alleged involvement with the module.

• She is suspect in the blast near the Red Fort in Delhi on Monday in which at least 13 people have been killed.

• Dr Umar Mohammad, who is said to have driven the car, worked as a doctor at Al Falah Medical College in Faridabad, Haryana. He is also reported to have previously worked as a senior resident at Government Medical College Anantnag.

• Investigators say that the arrested, including Shahid and Ganaie, are part of a ‘white-collar terror ecosystem’ that includes doctors and academics who take their instructions from Pakistan.

• The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), Jammu and Kashmir Police, and Lucknow Police have raided a house belonging to her brother Dr Parvez in Faridabad. Parvez is an assistant professor at the Integral University in the city. Shaheen and Parvez are the children of Saeed Ansari.

• Shaheen was chosen through the Public Service Commission. She became an assistant professor at the Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Medical College in Kanpur.

• However, she is said to have vanished from the college in 2013 without informing anyone. She is said to have married one Zafar Hayat.

• However, the couple divorced in 2015. The institute dismissed Shaheen in 2021.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Tuesday handed over the probe into a blast near the Red Fort to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), sources said.
This is a clear indication that the blast, which has so far claimed 13 lives, is being considered by the government as an act of terror, as the NIA is mandated to probe terror cases only.

“The blast case has been handed over to the NIA,” a source said. The decision came hours after Union Home Minister Amit Shah reviewed the security situation in the national capital and other parts of the country following the blast. Shah has called another security review meeting on Tuesday afternoon. The home minister has said top investigating agencies are probing the blast and they will go in-depth into the incident. The blast took place in a slow-moving car at a traffic signal near the Red Fort metro station on Monday evening, killing at least 13 people and gutting several vehicles, officials said.

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With inputs from agencies