White-collar radicalisation: Red Fort blast, Faridabad explosive haul expose new face of terror in India

Srinagar: The Red Fort blast in Delhi, which killed 12 people on Monday, and the recovery of 2,900 kilograms of bomb-making material from two rented rooms in Haryana’s Faridabad, have brought to light a chilling new dimension in India’s security landscape — white-collar radicalisation.

The suspected involvement of three Kashmiri doctors in the conspiracy has stunned investigators and exposed a disturbing transformation in the country’s terror ecosystem.

Officials say the incident marks a shift from conventional militancy to a more insidious form of extremism, where educated professionals are being drawn into Pakistan-backed networks operating quietly from within Indian cities.

The revelations have also renewed fears that the ISI may be attempting to revive its 1990s and 2000s strategy of carrying out coordinated blasts in major Indian metros, even as terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir has been nearly wiped out.

Forensic analysis has revealed that chemical traces from the blast site match the ammonium nitrate recovered in Faridabad, indicating a direct link between the two incidents. The Delhi Police have registered a case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), a law invoked in terror cases.

Three weeks before the blast near the iconic Red Fort, posters supporting terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad appeared in several parts of Srinagar. Jammu and Kashmir police then started an investigation that would bring them to Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and the national capital. This investigation would also reveal a fundamental shift in terror recruitment, which Jammu and Kashmir police would describe as a “white collar terror ecosystem”.

Three Kashmiri doctors, Adeel Ahmad Rather, Muzammil Shakeel and Umar Mohammed, are being investigated in connection with the Red Fort blast. The arrest of Rather and Shakeel in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur and Haryana's Faridabad, respectively, led to the recovery of a huge amount of material used in bomb-making.

Sources said initial investigations suggest the three doctors became acquainted through medical networks before being radicalised online through encrypted channels that pushed extremist propaganda disguised as humanitarian and religious outreach. Intelligence agencies believe the module had possible links with handlers across the border, indicating the involvement of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

A strategic shift in ISI tactics

Officials believe the emergence of educated professionals in terror plots reflects a shift in ISI’s strategy. With terror incidents in Jammu and Kashmir at an all-time low and local recruitment into militancy nearly at zero, Pakistan is said to be focusing on cultivating educated radicals in the mainland. The goal, security officials say, is to replicate the urban bombing campaigns of the 1990s and 2000s — when Indian cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Jaipur were repeatedly targeted — but using operatives who can blend seamlessly into professional settings.

“This is a new kind of threat — the radicalisation of educated professionals who use their intellect and access to technology to further extremist causes,” a senior counterterrorism official told DH. “They don’t fit the traditional profile of a militant. They wear lab coats instead of combat gear, and that makes them far more dangerous.”

Officials acknowledge that while counterinsurgency operations have significantly weakened traditional militant networks in Kashmir, the threat has now mutated. “The battlefield has shifted from the mountains to the mind,” he said. “White-collar radicalisation is the new frontier — it’s quiet, calculated, and deeply dangerous.”

India has seen hints of this trend before — from engineers in Indian Mujahideen cells in the 2000s to tech graduates joining ISIS-linked modules in Kerala — but the involvement of doctors in a high-profile urban bombing marks an alarming escalation.