Sadiya Azhar And Pak Terror Group's Women Wing Link To Delhi Red Fort Blast

Links have emerged between the Delhi Red Fort car bomb – which packed ammonium nitrate fuel oil into a Hyundai i20 and killed nine people – and Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed, which was responsible for the Pulwama attack, police sources said Tuesday.

Founded by globally-recognised terrorist Masood Azhar, the Jaish was targeted by Indian military after the February 2019 Pulwama attack, in which 40 soldiers were killed, and the Pahalgam horror in April 2025, in which 26 people, mostly civilians, were gunned down.

In the former instance, air strikes neutralised the group's training bases in Pakistan's Balakot and, in the latter, on May 7 missiles destroyed the Jaish's headquarters in Bahawalpur.

Azhar said 10 members of his family, including his brother-in-law, Yusuf Azhar, were killed in the strike on Bahawalpur. Yusuf Azhar was married to the terror boss' younger sister, Sadiya Azhar.

Since then, the group has begun re-building, with financial and logistical support from the Pakistan deep-state. In August sources told NDTV the group had begun a 'fund-raising' campaign and stepped up recruitment, with promises to 'transform the world into a paradise'.

Part of that re-building was to launch a 'woman's wing' – the Jamat ul-Muminat.

Sadiya Azhar was given charge of this initiative. She and another sister, Samaira Azhar, will conduct 'online classes', of 40 minutes each, to indoctrinate and recruit women, sources said.

READ | Jaish Launches Online 'Jihadi Course' For Women. Fee Is 500 PKR

Unverified reports indicate she has been told to focus on the wives of Jaish commanders and women from economically vulnerable sections. The immediate pool of 'candidates' is from areas surrounding the group's few remaining terror training camps and bases.

Now, there seem to be two links between the Delhi Red Fort car blast and the Jaish terror group.

READ | Delhi Blast Linked To Faridabad's Jaish-e-Mohammed Module, Say Sources

The first is the terror module that carried out the attack and the second is Shaheena Shahid, the woman in whose Maruti Suzuki Swift an assault rifle and ammunition was found.

AN assault rifle was also found in a locker at Anantnag's Government Medical College.

Shahid, a medical professional, worked with an accomplice, Dr Mujammil Shakeel, at the Al-Falah Hospital in Haryana's Faridabad. And, sources told NDTV she may be the head of the Jaish's women's wing in India. Shakeel and she were arrested from Faridabad Monday evening.

READ | Doctor Arrested In Faridabad Was Head Of Jaish's Women Wing In India

The blast near the Red Fort came hours after Jammu and Kashmir Police's inter-state, anti-terror crackdown, in which two medical professionals were arrested. Shakeel was one of them and the cops seized nearly 3,000kg of explosive materials, including ammonium nitrate, from him.

READ | 2,900 kg Explosives Found At 2 Houses Of J&K Doctor In Faridabad

The other was a Dr Adil Ahmed Rather, who was arrested from UP's Sahranpur.

READ | Panicked Doctor Triggered Delhi Blast? Suicide Attack Angle?

Sources told NDTV the blast was triggered by a third member of the Jaish terror module, a Dr Umar Mohammed, who panicked after Shakeel and Rather were arrested.

The use of 'doctors', meanwhile, underlines an apparent new modus operandi for the terrorist group.