A cache of seized explosives detonated inside a police station in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing at least 9 people and wounding 32 others, police reported on Saturday. The explosion occurred in the Nowgam space of Srinagar, the area’s major metropolis, late Friday as forensic specialists and police were analyzing the materials, said Nalin Prabhat, the area’s police director-general. He ruled out foul play, describing it as an accident.
The deceased included six police and forensic officers, two civil directors, and one civilian, authorities said. Some of the injured remained in crucial situation. The huge blast tore through the police station, igniting it and several autos. According to the Press Trust of India information company, small successive explosions delayed rapid rescue efforts.
The police station incident adopted Monday’s deadly car blast in New Delhi, which killed at least eight people close to the metropolis’s historic Red Fort. Indian officers labelled it a “heinous terror incident” perpetrated by “anti-national forces.”
The car explosion occurred hours after police in Kashmir announced they had dismantled a suspected militant cell working from the disputed area, arresting at least seven people—including two medical doctors from Indian cities—and seizing a giant amount of bomb-making materials in Faridabad, close to New Delhi.
Indian security companies have since carried out a sequence of raids in Kashmir as half of the car blast investigation, questioning tons of and detaining scores of others.
Indian police said Saturday they used DNA to establish the car’s driver as a Kashmiri physician. Government forces demolished his household home in the southern district of Pulwama on Thursday night time, officers said.
In the previous, troops have demolished houses of suspects accused of ties to militants combating Indian rule in Kashmir as punishment.
Police had transported the explosive materials seized in Faridabad to Kashmir for the investigation and saved it “securely in an open area” at the police station, where the probe into the suspected militant cell started last month, according to Prabhat, the prime officer.
Prabhat said a workforce of specialists was taking samples for forensic evaluation when the blast occurred, calling it an “accidental explosion.”
He said: “Any other speculation into the cause of this incident is unnecessary.”
The explosion was audible from miles away in Srinagar, locals said. Some victims’ body parts were recovered from nearby houses, more than 328 feet (100 metres) from the police station. Multiple houses also sustained damage.
Bashir Ahmed, a resident, said: “The explosion produced a deafening roar that rattled houses and flung open windows closed tight.”
Nearly a dozen relatives of Mohammad Shafi Parray, killed in the blast, gathered at his home in Nowgam and marched in protest to the police station, chanting: “We want justice.”
One of Parray’s kin, who did not give her title, said the deceased, a tailor by occupation, had been summoned by police Friday night time. She shouted: “Why did (the police) take him?”
A neighborhood police officer, talking on situation of anonymity in line with departmental coverage, said the tailor had been called to the station to sew luggage for storing explosive materials samples.
India and Pakistan each administer a half of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety.
Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been combating New Delhi’s rule since 1989. India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris think about it a respectable freedom wrestle.
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