Adeel Ahmad Rather | Rs 4 lakh-a-month doctor to a terror-linked detainee: The chilling paradox of privilege and radicalisation

Investigators and colleagues alike are struggling to comprehend how a doctor earning Rs 4 lakh a month could allegedly turn toward extremist activity.

Srinagar: A Kashmiri doctor earning one of the highest private-sector salaries in Uttar Pradesh is now at the centre of a multi-state terror probe that has shaken both the medical community and national security agencies.

Dr Adeel Ahmad Rather.

30-year-old Dr Adeel Ahmad Rather, a physician from south Kashmir’s Anantnag, was drawing Rs 4 lakh a month plus accommodation under a contract signed on November 24, 2024 with V Bros Hospitals, Saharanpur — a unit of Oscar Group of Hospitals.

The agreement, a copy of which lies with DH, confirms a generous package and professional privileges rarely seen outside metropolitan hospitals. Less than a year later, on November 6, 2025, Dr Rather was arrested from Saharanpur by a joint team of the Jammu & Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh Police for his alleged links to a Jaish-e-Mohammed-inspired terror module.

Investigators traced him after CCTV footage in Srinagar showed a man putting up posters supporting the banned outfit.

His detention led to one of the largest explosive seizures in recent years — nearly 2,900 kg of IED-making material, assault rifles, and ammunition recovered from Faridabad and Saharanpur. The cache was found in the rented accommodation of another Kashmiri doctor, Muzammil Shakeel, in Faridabad’s Dhauj village. Dr Shakeel, an MBBS graduate, was working at Al Falah University in Dhauj at the time.

Police have described the network as a “white-collar terror ecosystem” that allegedly relied on educated professionals — doctors, academics, and engineers — to transport funds, chemicals, and information while avoiding detection.

Paradox at the heart of the case

The discovery has rattled both security agencies and the medical fraternity.

Investigators and colleagues alike are struggling to comprehend how a doctor commanding Rs 4 lakh a month — a salary that places him among India’s top private-sector earners — could allegedly turn toward extremist activity.

The case challenges the long-held assumption that radicalisation grows from poverty or marginalisation. Here was a professional with stability, comfort, and social standing — yet, police say, he risked it all for a violent ideology.

Before joining the Saharanpur hospital, Dr Rather had served at the Government Medical College, Anantnag, where police later recovered an AK-47 rifle from his locker. He now faces charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Arms Act.

As investigations widen across several states, Dr Rather’s fall from a Rs 4-lakh-a-month physician to a terror-linked detainee stands as a jarring reminder that radicalisation can thrive even within privilege — a chilling paradox of prosperity and extremism colliding in modern India.