Before and after Red Fort blast, the 2 clerics arrested, 800 kilometres apart

Fatima and three of Wagay’s sisters told The Indian Express that he was taken from their Nadigam home on October 18. “He came home from Srinagar on Saturday as he always would. Had a cup of tea in the compound of the house and left for namaz. After dinner, everyone retired to their rooms, and the police knocked around 11 pm,” his older sister Sabi Jaan said.

The fourth of seven siblings, 24-year-old Wagay studied in formal school until the third grade. According to the family, his grandfather initiated him into religious studies, and he was enrolled at Darul Uloom Bilalia in Lal Bazar, Srinagar.

The mosque on the Al Falah campus in Faridabad where Ishtiyaq was a cleric.

After completing his basic religious education here, Wagay went to Deoband to continue his studies and train to become a Mufti in 2017-18.

“We were married in 2021,” Fatima, who is pregnant, said. The couple also have a three-year-old child. According to Fatima, Wagay spent the last seven years leading prayers at a mosque in a locality at Naik Bagh, Nowgam (Srinagar). “I used to visit him there often. We would both come home to Shopian on the weekend,” she said.

The family said that they are not familiar with the names of any of the other accused in the case. On October 19, multiple Jaish-e-Mohammad posters were found pasted at different locations in Bunpora Nowgam, Srinagar, threatening and intimidating police and security forces.

The police investigation would go on to unravel the “terror module” along with the arrest of Wagay and six others, including Arif Nisar Dar, Yasir-ul-Ashraf, and Maqsood Ahmad Dar, all residents of Nowgam, where Wagay led prayers.

The investigation led the police to Anantnag, Ganderbal and Shopian. And subsequently, they conducted searches at Faridabad, alongside the Haryana Police, and at Saharanpur, with the UP Police, arresting three doctors, while a fourth – Umar Nabi, the Red Fort blast suspect – gave them the slip.

Wagay’s family claimed he had never been called for questioning in the past, and “our home has never been searched before”. At the masjid in Nowgam, where he worked as an Imam, committee president Farooq Ahmad said, “Every Saturday, he would go home and come back Monday afternoon. This is shocking for everyone who prays here.”

Wagay’s house in Nadigam in Shopian, J&K. He was taken away by police on October 18.

He said the search of his room was conducted almost three weeks after they picked him from Shopian.

The family denied knowledge of any posters and said that he was engaged with religious texts. “His phone and laptop have been taken by the police,” his wife said. She said that the family tried to locate him at different police stations in Srinagar, but in vain.

In Haryana

At the residence of Maulana Ishtiyaq in Haryana’s Dhauj, his wife did not wish to speak to outsiders, and his eldest daughter, aged 17, did most of the talking. She has three younger siblings.

Ishtiyaq has been taken by the J&K police to Srinagar in connection with the alleged terror module. Officials said he hails from Mewat and was the cleric at a mosque inside the Al Falah campus, where three doctors linked to the module were working.

Ishtiyaq, investigators say, is one of five brothers who are also in the same profession across Haryana and Rajasthan.

He has a house in Dahar Colony of Fatehpur Taga village, where he rented out one of the rooms to Dr Muzammil Ganai, one of the key accused in the terror module.

It was at this rented accommodation that police found the explosives during raids on Sunday and Monday.

His children said that while they do not go to school, Ishtiyaq would teach them reading and writing at home.

His daughter said no one from the university or the extended family has been in touch since the detention.

She said their father’s salary of Rs 10,000 came from the university on the 7th of every month, which was also used for the upkeep of the mosque where he was the imam. The family makes another Rs 10,000 from selling buffalo milk.

Their home on the mosque campus is a simple one, with a courtyard, a single room and a kitchen.

“We do not keep or take photos of the family. The one phone we had was our father’s, which officials have taken away,” she said.

Villagers said mostly university employees and staff prayed at the mosque.