In a shocking breakthrough, it has been revealed that Faridabad terror module's Dr Shaheen Shahid, who was tasked with creating Jaish-e-Mohammed's women terror wing Jamaat-ul-Mominat, was in close contact with top leaders of Masood Azhar's outfit.
Among those Dr Shaheen was in touch with included Sadia Azhar, sister of JeM chief Masood and wife of 1999 Kandahar hijacking mastermind Yusuf Azhar. Yusuf was killed in Operation Sindoor strike on JeM's Bahawalpur headquarters in May.
The other is Afira Bibi, the wife of Umar Farooq, the mastermind of the 2019 Pulwama attack. Farooq, a nephew of Masood Azhar, was killed during a 2019 encounter in Dachigam National Park in Jammu and Kashmir, a month after the Pulwama attack.
It was earlier reported that Afira joined Jamaat-ul-Mominat weeks before the deadly blast killed over a dozen people near Delhi's Red Fort metro station.
Afira was part of the JeM women wing's Shura council and worked under Sadia Azhar. With the help of Al Falah University employee Dr Shaheen, Afira recruited women into their multi-state terror network.
A joint team of Jammu and Kashmir police and Faridabad police on Monday recovered one AK Krinkov rifle with three magazines, a pistol with live rounds, two empty cartridges, and two additional magazines from a Haryana-registered Swift Dzire car belonging to Dr Shaheen.
Following this, Dr Shaheen Shahid, a resident of Lal Bagh, Lucknow, was arrested from Al Falah University in Dhauj, Faridabad. The car was in the possession of Pulwama-based Dr Muzammil Shakeel, who also worked at the university. The Delhi blast suspect Umar un Nabi, who died in the exploded Hyundai i20, was also an employee there.