Delhi Terror-Accused Doctors: A Love Story that Descended into Radicalisation
Delhi blast accused doctor lured into JeM through third marriage.
In a shocking intersection of personal heartbreak and extremist radicalisation, Shaheen Saeed, a 46-year-old pharmacologist from Lucknow and one of the prime accused in the deadly 10/11 Red Fort bombing in Delhi, allegedly slid into terrorism after her third marriage to a Kashmiri doctor introduced her to the women’s wing of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit.
Raised in a respected middle-class family in Lucknow’s Daliganj locality, Saeed excelled academically, completing her MBBS from Allahabad and later specialising in pharmacology. Her first marriage in 2003 to ophthalmologist Dr Zafar Hayat produced two children but ended in divorce in 2012, reportedly over professional stress and her desire to migrate abroad. Former husband Dr Hayat described her as a loving mother with no visible extremist leanings, noting she rarely wore a burqa and remained deeply attached to her family.
The divorce left Saeed isolated; she abruptly resigned from her teaching position at Kanpur’s GSVM Medical College and vanished from professional circles for nearly eight years, resulting in the termination of her job in 2021. A brief second marriage to a Ghaziabad-based textile businessman also collapsed, deepening her loneliness until she met Dr Muzammil Shakeel, a junior colleague at Al-Falah University in Faridabad, Haryana.
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The couple married quietly in September 2023 at a mosque near the university, with Shakeel paying a modest mahr of Rs 6,000. Living together in the Delhi-NCR region, Saeed began attending religious study circles where operatives of Jamaat ul-Mominaat — the female arm of Jaish-e-Mohammed led from Pakistan by Masood Azhar’s sister Sadia Azhar — allegedly identified and groomed her. Using her medical credentials and frequent travel between Jammu & Kashmir, Delhi, and Haryana, Saeed reportedly began transferring funds, carrying encrypted messages, and was eventually appointed head of the outfit’s India operations.
Investigative agencies claim Saeed was tasked with building a five-member cell of “terror doctors”. Along with her husband Muzammil Shakeel and another Al-Falah University colleague Adeel Ahmed Rather, she was arrested following the November 10 suicide bombing near Red Fort that claimed at least 15 lives. Her family in Lucknow remains in disbelief, insisting the once-devoted mother showed no prior signs of radicalisation and expressing inability to reconcile the allegations with the daughter and sister they knew.
Also Read: Delhi 10/1/ Probe: Four Accused, Including Doctors, Remanded to 10-Day NIA Custody
