Delhi Bomber Visited Pulwama Home Week Before Blast, Gave His Phone To Brother

In the first confirmation that the chilling video by the Delhi suicide bomber, Dr Umar Mohammad alias Umar-un-Nabi, was shot at least a week before he blew up an explosives-laden car near the Red Fort, sources have told NDTV that the clip was on a phone Nabi had given to his brother at their house in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama earlier this month.

Ever since the video of Nabi terming suicide bombings "martyrdom operations" emerged on Tuesday, speculation has been rife about when it was shot and the sequence of events leading up to the bombing, in which 13 people were killed.

Sources have told NDTV that a week before Nabi carried out the attack on November 10, he had visited the family's house in Pulwama. Before he left for Faridabad, where he worked at the Al Falah University as an assistant professor in the General Medicine department, Nabi handed over one of his two phones to his brother.   

The sources said that the brother heard about the arrest of Nabi's colleagues at the Al Falah University, Dr Adeel Ahmed Rather - for putting up posters linked to a terror outfit in Srinagar - on November 7, and then Dr Muzammil Shakeel - in connection with an explosives haul in Faridabad - on November 9. The next day, before the bombing near the Red Fort, he found out Dr Shaheen Saeed had also been arrested. 

"He knew they were his brother's colleagues and friends and said he had heard the police were looking for Nabi as well," said a source. 

Nabi's brother panicked and dumped the phone in a pond near their house in Pulwama. When investigators tried to trace the two phones they knew Nabi had, they found both of them were switched off, with their last known locations in Delhi and Pulwama. 

Investigators then reached Nabi's house in Pulwama and, after sustained questioning, the brother revealed a phone had been given to him, and he had dumped it in a pond. 

Recovery

The suicide bombing in Delhi, the sources said, was carried out while the questioning was on and the phone was recovered only after that. 

"The phone had sustained water damage and the motherboard was also malfunctioning. We managed to recover Nabi's video only a few days later," said a source. 

The video emerged publicly on Tuesday and shows Nabi justifying suicide bombings, despite taking one's life being forbidden in Islam, and calling them acts of "martyrdom".

"One of the very misunderstood concepts is the concept of what has been labelled as suicide bombing. It is a martyrdom operation... known in Islam. Now, there are multiple contradictions; there are multiple arguments that have been brought against it," he says.

Umar says no one can predict when or where they will die, and what is destined will happen. "Don't fear death," he adds chillingly.

After an analysis of the video, psychologist Namrata Ohri told NDTV that while Nabi did not make eye contact with the camera, he seemed very confident and convinced about what he was saying. 

"He is trying to remember what he thought, and he's very confident in what he had scripted. He was trying to convince the audience that whatever he has done or whatever he is going to do is absolutely correct and well-algorithmic and well-programmed. He's very confident in his thought process, too. He is trying to make himself clear very naturally," she said.

Timeline

Sources had earlier said that the video was shot by Nabi in room number 13 of building number 17 in the sprawling Al Falah University. This very room is where the radicalised doctors, who allegedly have links with the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, made their plans, which involved 2,900 kg of explosives recovered from a room rented in Dr Muzammil Shakeel's name. 

"This would, thus, mean that the video is at least from a week before the blast, and could be much older still. It is not clear from the clip whether Nabi was talking about a suicide bombing he was planning to carry out or talking to others whom his module was trying to radicalise," said an official.