At least nine people were killed and 27 injured when a large pile of confiscated explosives at Nowgam police station in India-occupied Kashmir’s Srinagar detonated late last night, Press Trust of India (PTI) reported on Saturday.
Most of those killed were policemen and forensic team officials who were extracting samples from a large cache of explosives seized earlier this week in Haryana state, the report said.
According to the PTI, those killed in the incident included three people from the Forensic Science Laboratory, two from the revenue department, two police photographers, a member of the State Investigation Agency and a tailor.
At least 24 police personnel and three civilians were admitted to various hospitals in Srinagar, PTI quoted officials as saying.
The “massive” blast damaged the police station building and small successive explosions prevented immediate rescue operations by the bomb disposal squad, the PTI reported.
The blast comes four days after a deadly car explosion in Delhi, which killed at least eight people in what India has called a “terror incident”.
India’s anti-terrorism National Investigation Agency is leading the probe into the blast, but so far, officials have given little further information on who the perpetrators might be — and whether it was a homegrown group or had links from abroad.
Indian media have widely connected the November 10 blast with a string of arrests just hours before, when they claimed to have seized explosive materials and assault rifles.
Indian police have carried out sweeping raids in occupied Kashmir since Wednesday. There has been no confirmation that the searches this week are connected to the New Delhi explosion, but the raids represent a renewed effort by police to tighten security after the incident.
Officers also raided Al-Falah University in Faridabad, while security forces on Friday demolished a house in occupied Kashmir’s Pulwama district.
