Delhi Bomber Differed With Co-Accused Over Al-Qaeda Ideology, Skipped His Wedding: Sources

Umar-un-Nabi, who was driving the Hyundai i20 that exploded near Delhi's Red Fort on November 10, had skipped the wedding of a co-conspirator, Adeel Ahmed Rather, due to differences over their ideologies and finances for the blast, sources told NDTV on Sunday.

Umar, a Kashmiri doctor who was affiliated with the Al-Falah University in Haryana's Faridabad, a varsity that is now central to the Delhi car blast case, followed the ideology of the terror group ISIS, while other accused believed in the terror outfit al-Qaeda, sources said.

While both ISIS and al-Qaeda share roots in Salafism and Jihadism, their core ideologies differ significantly in their strategic priorities, the use of violence, their sectarian approach, and the timing and nature of establishing a caliphate.

It was because of this difference that Umar, who was the most radicalised among the 'white-collar' terror module behind the Delhi blast, skipped the wedding of Adeel, who has now been arrested, in Jammu and Kashmir earlier this year.

He then visited Jammu and Kashmir's Qazigund in October to reconcile differences with the group members to ensure that they can achieve their mission of carrying out multiple blasts, sources said.

Umar also had differences with other members over finances and the method of executing the attack.

He was handed about Rs 26 lakh for explosives and other logistics but was unhappy when he was asked to give details about expenditure, sources said. While Umar contributed Rs two lakh, Adeel gave Rs eight lakh.

Shaheen Saeed and Muzammil Shakeel, also arrested in the Delhi blast case, contributed Rs five lakh each, and Adeel's brother, Muzaffar Ahmed Rather, who has reportedly fled the country, gave Rs six lakh.

Delhi Blast

15 people were killed and many others injured when the i20 car driven by Umar-un-Nabi exploded near the Red Fort.

Umar reportedly initially planned to detonate the bomb near the parking at Red Fort, a tourist area that also houses a busy market, but 'panicked' after the arrest of his associates -- Shaheen Saeed and Muzammil Shakeel -- in connection with the wider probe into the 'white-collar' terror module.

He missed the fact that the Red Fort, popularly known as Lal Qila, remains shut on Mondays and saw that there was no crowd when he reached the parking lot. After waiting inside the parking lot for three hours, he drove out and exploded the i20 near a traffic signal at the Red Fort Metro Station.

Hours before the blast, Jammu and Kashmir Police had announced that it had cracked an interstate and transnational 'white-collar' terror module, linked to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, an al-Qaeda-affiliated terror group. It also said it had seized 2,900 kilograms of explosive substances, including ammonium nitrate, which was reportedly used in the Delhi blast.

(With inputs from Pradeep Dutta)