November 24, 2025

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NEW WHITE COLLAR TERROR

THE MESSAGE THE JAMMU & KASHMIR POLICE POSTED ON SOCIAL MEDIA SITE X AT 6:10 PM ON NOVEMBER 10 WAS SHORT AND TERSE: "YOU CAN RUN BUT CAN'T HIDE!" It was directed at Umar un-Nabi, a 32-year-old doctor at AlFalah Hospital in Faridabad. He was among the last key members of a white-collar terror module they had been cracking down on-- one suspected of planning major strikes in the National Capital Region and elsewhere. In the preceding two weeks, the J&K Police had arrested key members of the module, mainly doctors like Umar, but he himself had proved elusive, and they had hoped to nab him that fateful Monday morning. Having got wind of his impending arrest, Umar fled his Faridabad house in an explosivesladen white Hyundai i20 at 7:30 am. The J&K Police had reportedly asked their Delhi counterparts to issue a BOLO (Be On Look Out) notice for himPublic CCTV cameras would later reveal Umar entering Delhi at 8:13 am and driving around the capital, even stopping at Connaught Place for 10 minutes around 2 pm and then at the Faiz-e-Ilahi Masjid opposite Turkman Gate to offer prayers around 2:30 pm. From there, he'd drive to Sunehri Masjid, not far from the historic Red Fort, and leave his vehicle at the parking lot there at 3:19 pm. Three and a half hours later, at 6:48 pm, just 38 minutes after the J&K Police's message on X, Umar would exit the parking area and head to the Red Fort, making a U-turn to come close to its main gate. At 6:55 pm, he seems to have detonated the explosives, which blew the car itself into smithereens, killed 12 others and injured another 20 people who were either bystanders or in vehicles nearby.

NO PLACE TO TAKE A BREAK

GURUGRAM-BASED CYRIL NAIR, a senior software executive, was en route to Jaisalmer with family when, just an hour along the new accesscontrolled highway, his toddler son piped up with some urgency: "Daddy, I need to pee." They were in the middle of what seemed like nowhere, ominous clouds thundering overhead and heavy rain lashing the windshield. All 44-year-old Nair could see through the persevering wipers were a few metres of asphalt. No sign of a rest stop anywhere. "I had to tell my family that we couldn't stop… We had to drive another 30 km to find a place with a decent wash room." And therein lies the paradox of India's highway boom--146,200 km of gleaming expressways criss-crossing the country, built to power tourism and industry, but only 94 operational wayside amenities (WSAs)--government-regulated rest facilities that include fuel stations, food courts, toilets, medical rooms and so on-- along them. Roughly put, that is an average gap of 1,553 km between each rest stop. The ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) is now trying to rectify the situation through a policy pivot that aims to install such facilities every 30-40 km along national highways, in