A massive explosion at the Nowgam police station near Srinagar late Friday night killed nine people and left 32 others injured after a large cache of confiscated explosives went off during examination.
Most of the deceased were policemen and forensic experts who were analysing the explosive material recovered recently from Faridabad, Haryana. Two officials from the Srinagar administration also lost their lives, NDTV reported.
The injured were shifted to the Army’s 92 Base Hospital and the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS).
Jammu and Kashmir DGP Nalin Prabhat said that among the dead were an SIA official, three FSL officials, two crime wing personnel, two revenue officials, and a tailor assisting the team. He confirmed that 27 police personnel, two revenue officials and three civilians were among the injured, NDTV reported.
“Owing to the unstable and sensitive nature of the recovery, it was being handled with utmost caution. However, during the same, an accidental explosion took place at about 11:20 PM. Any speculation beyond this is unnecessary,” the DGP said, as quoted by NDTV.
The Nowgam police station had recently cracked a major terror case involving Jaish-e-Mohammed posters that surfaced across the region, exposing a radicalised module of highly qualified professionals. This investigation led to the arrest of several doctors and the recovery of massive quantities of explosive materials.
One of the arrested doctors, Adeel Ahmad Rather, was earlier seen in CCTV footage putting up threat posters warning of attacks on security forces and outsiders. His arrest exposed a deeper “white-collar terror ecosystem” involving radicalised professionals with links to handlers in Pakistan, NDTV reported.
Further interrogations led police to Haryana, where nearly 3,000 kg of ammonium nitrate was seized from locations linked to another doctor, Muzammil Shakeel. Subsequent arrests revealed more layers of the network.
The terror module is also linked to this week’s deadly blast near Delhi’s Red Fort that killed 13. Investigators believe that the IED used in the car explosion was assembled improperly, possibly due to panic among the suspects following the large chemical seizure.
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