Robert Louis Stevenson’s masterpiece of the duality of good and evil in man’s nature is narrated through the tale of the mild-mannered Dr Jekyll and the drug that unleashes his evil, inner persona—the loathsome, twisted Mr Hyde and remains the terrifying stuff of our worst nightmares.

Dr Mujammil Shakeel, a doctor from Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama, has emerged as the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in a “white-collar" terrorist ecosystem involving radicalised professionals. 350 kg of explosives and several arms and ammunition were seized from a rented accommodation, and another 2,563 kg of suspected explosives were recovered from another house in Haryana’s Faridabad. Both the houses were rented by Dr Mujammil Shakeel, who worked at Al Falah Medical College and Hospital in Faridabad, Dhoj, around 45 km from Delhi, which is privately run and recognised by the University Grants Commission (UGC).

Dr Mujammil Shakeel was not a lone wolf terrorist; he had many other medical professionals in pursuit of a gory dream. Dr Umar Un Nabi of Pulwama was another prominent member of the Faridabad module, Dr Shaheen Shahid, a doctor from Lucknow, and Dr Abdul Majeed Rather, who worked at Famous Medicare Super Speciality Hospital in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur. These terror-doctors were having plans to develop Ricin, a deadly toxin, for mixing with Temple Prasad, to create horrific mass casualties and deaths!

The investigations so far have uncovered a network of medical professionals with alleged links to the terrorist organisations Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind. Involvement of nearly 22 doctors are presently being probed, which can extend to nearly 200 doctors, and the figure may go up in the coming days. Medical professionals who took the Hippocratic Oath and pledge of medical ethics, emphasising the importance of a patient’s well-being, upholding professional integrity, and doing no harm, were sadly engaged in diabolical religious terrorism, and plotting to wipe out lakhs of innocent citizens, using Ricin.

Ricin (from castor beans/Ricinus communis) remains appealing to extremist groups more for its symbolic and psychological significance than for its actual lethality. Classified by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a Category B bioterrorism agent and listed under Schedule 1 of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), ricin is a typical ‘bio-chemical toxin’ well-known for its high toxicity. The United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540 and national laws such as India’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Act (2005) also ban the production or........

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