Indian authorities have detained multiple suspects following a car explosion in Delhi that killed nine people and wounded at least 20.
The blast occurred on Monday near the Red Fort, a medieval fortress and Unesco World Heritage site where India’s prime ministers traditionally deliver the annual Independence Day speeches.
The explosion occurred during the evening rush hour and gutted several vehicles and left a trail of devastation across one of the capital’s busiest districts. Investigators are treating the incident as a potential terrorist attack under the stringent anti-terrorism laws that allow broader powers to arrest and detain suspects.
According to the Associated Press, police in the restive Himalayan region of Kashmir have detained five individuals from Pulwama district in connection with the blast.
The detentions followed a wider crackdown over the past week during which some 1,500 people were questioned across the federal territory as authorities sought to thwart a “reorganisation” of militants, the Indian Express reported, citing sources.
As part of the crackdown, the Kashmir police had arrested seven men, three of them doctors, from Faridabad and Saharanpur areas near Delhi barely a few hours before the blast.
Authorities had also recovered weapons and some 2,900 kilograms of bomb-making material which they claimed linked the detained suspects to Pakistan-based militant groups Jaish-e-Mohammed and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, according to the Associated Press.
India routinely accuses Pakistan of supporting Islamist militants in Kashmir, where a bloody insurgency against Delhi’s rule is midway through its third decade. Islamabad denies the allegation.
India media outlets have reported, citing unnamed sources, that the Hyundai i20 that exploded was being driven by Dr Umar Nabi, a Kashmiri doctor at Al Falah University in Faridabad. However, authorities have not issued a formal statement about whether Dr Nabi was driving the car and whether he was killed in the explosion.
Investigators are reportedly examining whether Dr Nabi deliberately triggered the explosion or if it was an accidental detonation while transporting explosives.
Delhi police spokesperson Sanjay Tyagi said authorities were exploring “all possible angles, including a terror attack, an accidental blast or any kind of failure in the car”.
Police have also detained a Faridabad car dealer, Amit, whose showroom sold the Hyundai i20 involved in the explosion. Authorities are tracing the car’s ownership chain to determine how it reached Dr Nabi.
“We are verifying who brought the car to Amit’s showroom and through whom Dr Umar Nabi came in contact with him,” sources were quoted as saying by the Indian Express.
Four police officers in Kashmir familiar with the case claimed the crackdown that led them to the “Faridabad cell” began with a routine investigation into anti-India posters that appeared in Kashmir’s main city, Srinagar, on 19 October, according to the Associated Press. The posters threatened attacks on Indian troops stationed in Kashmir. Interrogations over three weeks led to the detention of several people, including three doctors working outside the Himalayan region.
The explosion, meanwhile, has left many families grieving.
Among the dead was Jumman Khan, a 35-year-old e-rickshaw driver from Delhi. Only his torso could be identified after the explosion and his family struggled to confirm his identity.
Nauman Ansari, 21, a cosmetics shop owner, and Pankaj Saini, 21, a cab driver, also died, leaving behind grieving families in the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh.
Amar Kataria, a 34-year-old pharmacist, was identified by tattoos after his body was badly burnt.
Dinesh Kumar, 36, a wedding card shop worker, and Mohsin Malik, 35, an e-rickshaw driver, were also killed in the blast. Lokesh Aggarwal, 60, a fertiliser trader, and Ashok Kumar, 34, a Delhi Transport Corporation conductor, died together while returning home from Chandni Chowk.
Eyewitnesses described chaotic scenes in the aftermath of the explosion. A friend of Kataria’s said he had closed his shop early to head home, only to perish near the Red Fort.
A colleague of Dinesh Kumar’s mourned a “happy-go-lucky” man who “would tease us until we smiled”.
Families and friends rushed between hospitals and mortuaries in the hours after the blast to confirm the identities of the victims.
Prime minister Narendra Modi visited the Lok Nayak Hospital on Wednesday to see the injured and vowed that no “conspirator” behind the attack would be spared.
Additional reporting by agencies.
