The blast at the police station in Nowgam occurred while policemen and forensic team officials were handling the explosive material that had been brought from Faridabad.
At least nine people were killed and 29 others were injured after a huge pile of confiscated explosives stored at a police station in Nowgam near Jammu and Kashmir’s Srinagar went off on Friday night.
Most of those killed were policemen and forensic team officials, who were examining the explosives. Two officials from the Srinagar administration also died in the explosion.
The blast occurred while they were handling the explosive material that had been brought from Haryana’s Faridabad recently.
The injured have been rushed to the Indian Army’s 92 Base Hospital and Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS). Senior police officials have reached Nowgam, and the area has been cordoned off.
It was the Nowgam police station that cracked the case of terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed’s posters in various locations of the area.
These posters exposed the terror module in which radicalised highly-qualified professionals were involved. The discovery led to the recovery of massive explosive material and the arrest of several terror doctors.
In October, one of the arrested doctors, Adeel Ahmad Rather, was seen putting up these posters that warned of big attacks on security forces and “outsiders” in Kashmir. His arrest on October 27 uncovered a sinister network, which was later found to be behind the Delhi blast that claimed 13 lives earlier this week.
The investigation into the posters revealed a “white-collar terror ecosystem, involving radicalised professionals and students in contact with foreign handlers, operating from Pakistan and other countries”, the Jammu and Kashmir police said.
When the police scanned the CCTV footage of areas where the Jaish posters were put up, they identified Rather, who worked at the Government Medical College in Anantnag till October last year before moving to Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh.
He was arrested soon after, and an assault rifle was also recovered from his locker in the Government Medical College.
While he was being questioned, the name of another doctor, Muzammil Shakeel, who worked at Al-Falah Medical College in Haryana’s Faridabad, came up. During the raid at houses associated with Shakeel, the joint team of Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana Police recovered nearly 3,000 kg of Ammonium Nitrate. Shakeel’s arrest led to more revelations and the arrest of another doctor, Shaheen Saeed – who worked at the same university – on Monday.
Hours later, an explosion ripped through a car that stopped at a red light on a jam-packed road near the iconic Red Fort, killing 13 people, injuring more than 20, and damaging several cars.
The next day, the name of another doctor – Umar Nabi – emerged. Top sources revealed he was driving the Hyundai i20 car in which the blast took place. Sources in the National Investigation Agency, which is probing the blast, said the seizure of the chemical used in bomb-making may have triggered a panic situation for the suspect and compelled him to relocate.
The sources cited by media said that the nature of the blast indicates the suspect appeared to have assembled the improvised explosive device (IED) improperly. Investigators believe the suspects, in a panic, could not arm the IED for maximum damage
