At least nine people were killed and 32 injured late Friday in Indian-administered Kashmir in an accidental blast that happened while officials were inspecting bomb-making materials recently seized as part of an investigation into a terror network, the police said.
The police had announced the discovery of the cache on Monday, the same day a car exploded in India’s capital, killing at least eight people. The Indian government has said it is treating the blast in New Delhi as a terror attack, and the police said they were trying to establish whether there was any link between it and the network behind the confiscated weapons cache.
The powerful explosion on Friday ripped through Nowgam police station in Srinagar, the biggest city in Kashmir, with police and officials from forensics teams among the many casualties, the police said in a statement and at a news conference.
The more than 6,000 pounds of bomb-making materials and other weapons had been confiscated in Faridabad, a town just outside New Delhi, as part of an investigation by the police in Jammu and Kashmir, which is in a region that is disputed by India and Pakistan.
The cache was linked to Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistan-based group long accused of attacks in India, officials said in announcing the seizure. The regional police said that they had followed leads to towns outside New Delhi, where they arrested around half a dozen suspects, including medical doctors. Four of those doctors were stripped of their medical licenses on Friday.
The confiscated materials had been brought to Srinagar, police officials said. In a news conference, Nalin Prabhat, the director general of police of Jammu and Kashmir, said it was an “accidental explosion” that occurred during a forensic examination of the materials. “Any other speculation into the cause of this incident is unnecessary,” Mr. Prabhat said.
The explosion caused extensive damage to the police station and nearby buildings, and destroyed several vehicles in the police station’s parking area.
Several videos on social media showed injured policemen being treated at a hospital. Shahid Nazir, an eyewitness, said he saw several people being treated at a hospital across the street from where the blast took place.
Mohammad Saleem Bhat, a resident of a nearby area said, “ The blast was so loud that it shattered the window panes of many houses in the area.”
Anupreeta Das and Hari Kumar contributed reporting.
The post Nine Dead After Accidental Blast at Police Station in Kashmir appeared first on New York Times.
