A joint team from the Delhi Police Special Cell and Madhya Pradesh Police raided the residence of Al-Falah University director Javed Ahmed Siddiqui in Mhow today questioning family members as part of the intensifying National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into the Red Fort car blast that killed at least 13 people and injured over 20 on November 10. The operation, which extended to Siddiqui's ancestral home in the communally sensitive Kayastha Mohalla, sought to trace financial trails and potential links between the 61-year-old director—born and raised in Mhow—and two arrested MBBS doctors from the university's medical college, Dr Shaheen Shahid and Dr Muzammil Shakeel Ganaie, implicated in the ammonium nitrate-fuelled attack executed by Dr Umar Un Nabi using a white Hyundai i20. Investigators, who arrived early Friday, scrutinised old records and interviewed locals, including neighbours recalling Siddiqui's family ties to the late city Qazi Mohammad Hammad Siddiqui, amid no immediate evidence of direct involvement but heightened focus on the institution's recruitment practices since 2019.

The raid follows Thursday's NIA and Delhi Police searches at the Al-Falah Group's Okhla office in Delhi, where land documents, financial files, and records of hostel allocations, faculty hires, and transactions were seized to determine if the Faridabad-based university—spanning engineering, medical, and research arms on a 78-acre campus—served as a cover for radicalisation, fundraising, or logistics in a suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad-linked module. Officials are examining whether the three doctors exploited their positions to recruit Kashmiri professionals and stockpile nearly 3,000 kg of explosives recovered from nearby Dhauj and Fatehpur Taga villages, with a fourth doctor, Dr Nisar-ul-Hassan—dismissed in 2022 for security threats—also under scrutiny for past employment at the college. Al-Falah's legal advisor, Mohammad Raazi, affirmed full cooperation, insisting the campus was unaware of any illicit activities and denying misuse of facilities for terror funding or experiments, while over 70 staff and students have been questioned without yielding concrete ties to the blast.

Siddiqui's background has drawn fresh attention, revealing his 2000 arrest in a ₹7.5 crore investment fraud case involving shell companies like Al-Falah Education Service, Al-Falah Investment Ltd., and Al-Falah Exports—all registered at the Okhla address—where he allegedly lured investors with high returns before fleeing to Delhi after irregularities surfaced in 2001. Acquitted in 2005 after three years in jail, the B.Tech graduate from SGSITS Indore, who thrice attempted the civil services, built the Al-Falah Charitable Trust network of nine entities, many dormant since 2019, now facing an Enforcement Directorate probe into funding patterns. The university, granted UGC approval in 2015 and a medical college licence in 2019 under BJP-led governments, has suspended AIU membership and received a NAAC show-cause notice for falsely claiming accreditation on its now-dark website, amplifying questions about oversight in hiring terror-suspect faculty.

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As the multi-agency investigation—invoking the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act—expands to Delhi, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh with more raids anticipated, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet has labelled the blast a "heinous terror incident" by "anti-national forces", vowing swift justice amid nationwide alerts at heritage sites and airports. The NIA's forensic audit of Al-Falah's records, coupled with the detentions of five more individuals, including two additional doctors and a university staffer, Mohammad Jamil, for alleged recruitment facilitation, underscores a pattern of Kashmir-origin professionals masking operations under academic cover. With the death toll rising from a critically injured victim and international condolences pouring in, the probe risks exposing systemic vulnerabilities in educational institutions, potentially leading to stricter vetting for foreign-linked hires in sensitive border-state networks.

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