India: The Red Fort Blast A Singular Shock – Analysis

The Red Fort

November 18, 2025 
SATP
By Ajit Kumar Singh


On November 10, 2025, at least 10 civilians were killed and another 32 injured when a slow-moving car exploded near the iconic Red Fort in Delhi at around 6:52 pm [IST]. Two days later, on November 12, the Government officially termed the suicide blast a “terror attack”.

In a press release, the Government stated, “The country has witnessed a heinous terror incident, perpetrated by anti-national forces, through a car explosion near the Red Fort on the evening of 10 November 2025. The explosion resulted in multiple fatalities, and caused injuries to several others… The Cabinet directs that the investigation into the incident be pursued with the utmost urgency and professionalism so that the perpetrators, their collaborators, and their sponsors are identified and brought to justice without delay.”

In a related incident on November 14, 2025, at around 11 pm [IST], a blast occurred at the Nowgam Police Station in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), while authorities were extracting samples from a large cache of explosives confiscated from Faridabad, Haryana, in connection with an inter-State terrorist module suspected to be linked to the Delhi blast.

J&K Director General of Police, Nalin Prabhat, stated, “Due to the sensitive and unstable nature of the recovered material, the sampling and examination were being carried out with extreme caution. Despite all precautions, an accidental blast occurred… “

Prior to the incident near Red Fort, according to the SATP database, the national capital had recorded at least 35 terrorism-related incidents resulting in 134 deaths and 885 injuries, since 1997. The last terrorist incident occurred on October 20, 2024, when Khalistan Zindabad Force terrorists carried out a blast in Rohini, Delhi, though no casualties were reported. The last incident of Islamist terrorism occurred on January 29, 2021, when a low-intensity Improvised Explosive Device exploded near the Israel Embassy in New Delhi; no one was injured, though some vehicles were damaged. The last major (resulting in three or more fatalities) terrorist attack in Delhi occurred on September 7, 2011, when a blast at the reception area near Gate No. 5 of the Delhi High Court killed 13 people and injured 89, one of whom died later. The Hizbul Mujahideen was responsible for the attack.



Since the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008, which killed 175, including 144 civilians, six major terrorist attacks have taken place outside major conflict theatres – J&K, Punjab and the Northeast – before the November 2025 Red Fort blast. These included: February 13, 2010: 16 civilians, including three foreigners (a Sudanese, an Italian, and an Iranian), were killed, in a terror attack at Pune in Maharashtra.
July 13, 2011: 19 civilians were killed in a terror attack at Mumbai in Maharashtra.
September 7, 2011: Nine civilians were killed in a terror attack at Delhi.
February 21, 2013: 17 civilians were killed in a terror attack at Dilsukhnagar, Hyderabad Urban District, Andhra Pradesh.
October 27, 2013: Eight civilians killed in a terror attack at Patna in Bihar. Lashkar-e-Taiba/Indian Mujahidin were responsible for the attack.
December 26, 2013: Five persons killed and several injured in a bicycle bomb blast in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, suspected to have been engineered by the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation, which observes its Martyrs’ Day on December 28.

The October 27, 2013, incident in which eight persons were killed in six serial blasts near Gandhi Maidan — the venue of then Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s rally in Patna, Bihar — remains the last major Islamist terror attack outside India’s principal theatres of conflict, since the 26/11 attacks.

Since October 2013, there have been 17 Islamist terrorist incidents (excluding the November 2025 Delhi blast) outside these conflict theatres, resulting in 30 fatalities — civilians: six; Security Force (SF) personnel: three; terrorists: 19; Not Specified: two. The last of these that resulted in a civilian fatality occurred on June 28, 2022, when Kanhaiya Lal Teli, a Hindu tailor, was murdered in Udaipur, Rajasthan, by two assailants reportedly linked to the Islamic State. The attackers filmed the killing and circulated the video online.

At peak, in 2008, 362 lives were lost in 39 incidents of Islamist terrorist depredations outside the principal theatres of conflict in India, including, 281 civilians, 29 SF personnel and 15 terrorists. Five of the seven years between 2002 and 2008 recorded over 100 fatalities in such incidents. In the 10 years between 2015 and 2024, five recorded zero fatalities.

The dramatic improvement in the situation was largely due to sustained pressure by the SFs throughout this period (October 28, 2013-November 9, 2025), which led to the neutralization of a large number of terrorist modules across the country. Crucially, the nationwide network of domestic facilitators in the Students’ Islamic Movement of India and its offshoot, the Indian Mujahideen, was completely dismantled by the security and intelligence agencies, crippling the operational capacities of terrorist groups operating out of Pakistani and Bangladeshi soil at that them. At least 918 terrorists/associates were arrested during this period, before the Red Fort blast, and several terrorist plots have been foiled before they reached the stage of execution.

Despite the shock of the Red Fort incident of November 10, a far greater catastrophe has been averted, as SFs recovered around 2,900 kilograms of explosives from Faridabad, Haryana. Though the investigations are ongoing, preliminary investigations indicate likely linkages between the Faridabad haul and the Red Fort blast.

The trail of this case began on October 17, 2025, Jaish-e-Mohammed propaganda posters were found pasted in Srinagar’s Nowgam area. Police arrested the persons who put up the posters, Nisar Ahmed Dar, a labour contractor from Nowgam; 19-year-old Yasir-ul-Ashraf from Bunpora; and 25-year-old Maqsood Ahmad Dar from Bunpora on October 19 in Nowgam. Their interrogations led to the detention of 24-year-old cleric Mufti Irfan Ahmad Wagay from Nadigam village in Shopian the same day, at the Nowgam mosque. Further probes exposed a 22-member terror module, resulting in the November 5 arrest of Doctor Adeel Ahmad Rather in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh; the November 8 arrest of Doctor Muzamil Ahmad Ganie in Faridabad, Haryana; and November 9-10 arrests of Doctor Shaheen Saeed in Faridabad, and Zameer Ahmad Ahanger, 29, from Wakoora village in Ganderbal, J&K. Additional detentions on November 11 in Pulwama included Tariq, Aamir, Umar Rashid, Ghulam Nabi, Doctor Sajjad Malla, and Shameema Begum, as well as the early November arrests of Hafiz Mohammad Ishtiyak in Mewat, Haryana, and an unnamed paramedic at Srinagar’s Government Medical College on October 19; Doctor Umar Mohammad Nabi is believed killed in the blast, while another Doctor Umar remains absconding. The plot, alleged intended to target multiple locations across six cities, but was thwarted when 2,900 kilograms of various explosive materials, including just under 360 kilograms of ammonium nitrate, were seized in Faridabad.

Separately, just days before the Faridabad recovery, on November 8, 2025, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) arrested three persons, including Doctor Ahmed Mohiuddin Saiyed – an MBBS graduate from China – for allegedly attempting to produce Ricin, a deadly organic toxin, to carry out a bio-terrorism attack. The Gujarat ATS also searched Saiyed’s residence in Rajendranagar, Hyderabad, on November 11, 2025, and seized several unidentified chemicals and raw materials packed in cartons.

The Government’s responses to the Red Fort blast have been uncharacteristically cautious, and it took three days for the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to announce that the incident was a terrorist attack. In the past, the top leadership and state agencies have been quick to identify the groups affiliations and state sponsors of alleged perpetrators, but there is evident reluctance to do so in the present case, principally due to the strategic and policy implications that would then bind the Government. In the wake of Operation Sindoor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had declared that “any future act of terror will be considered an Act of War against India,” and that Operation Sindoor was not over, but only in suspension, and would be reactivated by any future act of terrorism by Pakistan-linked groups. These statements, and subsequent declarations by various prominent ministers and the Defence, Home and External Affairs ministries, create an expectation of escalated retaliation against Pakistan in case of a terrorist attack linked to groups operating or directed from that country. Given the complex and ambiguous outcomes of Operation Sindoor, both in the military and diplomatic spheres, it is evident that the Government would be reluctant to hastily commit itself to such a course of action.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consequently declared, with great caution, that “those behind the conspiracy will be brought to justice”, but has scrupulously avoided reference to any possible linkages to Pakistan, as have other prominent members of his Government and Party. In an interesting contrast, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s knee jerk response to the Islamabad Court suicide bombing of November 11, 2025, just a day after the Red Fort bombing in New Delhi, was to blame India – even as his Defence Minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif identified the Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as the group involved, and accused the Afghan Taliban of providing support and safe haven to its leadership and cadres. Shebaz Sharif’s reaction to the Islamabad Court bombing is the more typical of the trajectory of the India-Pakistan discourse, where Islamabad and New Delhi have been quick to accuse each other in the wake of such incidents in the past.

It remains to be seen whether such evasion will remain sustainable as the investigations, now headed by the National Investigation Agency, India premier counter-terrorism investigator, proceed, and how the national political-strategic narrative evolves. It is clear that, despite the political rhetoric, a repeat or further escalation of a response on the model of Operation Sindoor is unlikely to serve India’s interests. The Government, however, appears to have painted itself into an infructuous corner, and needs to extricate itself from its current predicament. Terrorism will not magically disappear as the result of fitful ‘punitive’ strikes in Pakistan, and occasional terrorist strikes in India cannot negate tremendous counterterrorism successes forged by the country’s security and intelligence agencies. Terrorism is no longer an existential threat to the country, and a steady consolidation, and proportionate and covert punitive measures against Pakistan where its responsibility is established, would far better serve India’s national interests.

Ajit Kumar Singh

Senior Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

SATP

SATP, or the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) publishes the South Asia Intelligence Review, and is a product of The Institute for Conflict Management, a non-Profit Society set up in 1997 in New Delhi, and which is committed to the continuous evaluation and resolution of problems of internal security in South Asia. The Institute was set up on the initiative of, and is presently headed by, its President, Mr. K.P.S. Gill, IPS (Retd).