JAMMU: The arrests of eight persons-most of them from the Kashmir Valley, mostly doctors, in connection with the Red Fort blast have exposed an alarming truth of internal security mechanism, especially the collapse of the police verification system. The process meant to filter out individuals with dubious backgrounds or extremist leanings seems to have been reduced to a mere formality, and the consequences are now before the nation in the most horrific manner possible. The Red Fort blast, which left nine dead and several injured in Delhi, is a chilling reminder that when complacency meets radical intent, the result is catastrophe.
The very purpose of police verification, meant to ensure that those entering government service, academia, or any other important institution are free of criminal or extremist backgrounds, has been eroded over time. The police verification mechanism has failed to evolve with the times, ignoring digital trails, financial histories, or online radical activity. The question now haunting both the people and security agencies alike is: how did these doctors, now accused of involvement in terrorism, manage to pass every verification check?
The Red Fort blast has shaken the collective conscience because it represents not just an act of terror but a betrayal of professional ethics and human values. The visuals of mangled vehicles and dismembered bodies in the heart of the national capital were horrifying enough. What an irony that those behind the carnage were doctors, the supposed saviours of life, adds a grotesque irony. It is the height of radicalism, where those sworn by the Hippocratic Oath to heal and protect ended up taking lives in cold blood. This marks a dangerous trend. The gun-wielding terrorist in the forest is no longer the only threat; now, the educated and employed, those who should have been society’s backbone, are becoming the instruments of terror. Radicalization has entered classrooms, laboratories, and hospitals. It is spreading silently with fanatic motives. This incident also exposes a dark and dangerous turn in radicalization, when the educated and privileged become executors of terror networks.
The ongoing investigation by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has now become a national test of accountability. It must go beyond identifying the immediate perpetrators to uncovering the entire chain of recruitment, indoctrination, and facilitation. The NIA’s lens must also turn toward the infamous Al-Falah University in Faridabad, already under scrutiny after 2,900 kilograms of explosive material were recovered from indoctrinated doctors. How could such a staggering cache of explosives be stored at the residences of two doctors without detection? What kind of ideological ecosystem allowed such a stockpile to exist under the nose of local authorities, especially in the wake of reports about the alleged use of the university labs for making explosives? These are not just questions for the NIA-they are questions for every institution that claims to safeguard national integrity. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the investigating agencies to probe the Al-Falah University extensively with focus on the antecedents of all those manning the institution and working there. Also, the institutions-universities, GMCs, Medical Colleges across Jammu and Kashmir and outside-also need to be investigated where the Jihadi doctors and other suspects have studied or worked as interns. After all this is a question of national security.
The involvement of educated individuals, especially the medicos, in terrorism also exposes that radical ideologues are working overtime to destabilize India to change its cultural and demographic identity. Pakistan sponsored terrorism seems to have transcended its operational misadventure beyond Jammu and Kashmir. This is alarming, having widespread ramifications. The Red Fort act has brought Kashmir once again in the headlines, obviously for wrong reasons, after the Pahalgam attack, not for its beauty or resilience, but for a new kind of betrayal. The emergence of white-collar terrorism is not just a law-and-order issue; it is a civilizational crisis that calls for introspection.