ISIS India Chief Saquib Nachan Dies in Hospital After Brain Haemorrhage

Saquib Nachan, the alleged head of ISIS operations in India and former member of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), passed away at Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital on Saturday afternoon due to a brain haemorrhage. He was 57.

Nachan had been in judicial custody at Tihar Jail since 2023 after being arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with the alleged ISIS terror module active in Delhi and Maharashtra’s Padgha region. He was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday after his health declined in custody. Doctors diagnosed a brain haemorrhage soon after admission. Despite continuous medical monitoring, his condition deteriorated, and he was declared dead at 12:10 pm.

A resident of Padgha in Maharashtra’s Thane district, Nachan was a prominent figure in SIMI in the late 1990s and early 2000s before the organization was banned for anti-national activities. He rose to infamy during the investigations into a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai in 2002 and 2003 — including at Mumbai Central, Vile Parle, and Mulund — which killed at least 13 people and injured over 100.

Nachan was convicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) for illegal possession of arms, including an AK-56 rifle, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was released in 2017 with a remission of over five months for good conduct.

In 2023, Nachan was again arrested, this time for being the prime accused in the NIA’s Delhi-Padgha ISIS module case. His death ends a long trail of alleged militant involvement that spanned over two decades.