SRINAGAR, India: A cache of confiscated explosives detonated inside a police station in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing at least nine people and injuring 32 others, police said on Saturday.
The blast occurred in the Nowgam area of Srinagar, the region’s main city, late Friday when a team of forensic experts and police were examining the explosive material, said Nalin Prabhat, the region’s police director-general. He ruled out any foul play, saying it was an accident.
The dead included six police and forensic officials, two civil administrators and one civilian, authorities said. Some of the injured were in critical condition.
The huge blast ripped through the police station, setting it and multiple vehicles on fire. According to the news agency Press Trust of India, small successive explosions prevented immediate rescue operations.
A deadly car explosion
The police station blast came days after Monday’s deadly car explosion in New Delhi, which killed at least eight people near the city’s historic Red Fort. Indian officials called it a “heinous terror incident” carried out by “anti-national forces.” The car blast happened hours after police in Kashmir said they had dismantled a suspected militant cell operating from the disputed region, arresting at least seven people, including two doctors from Indian cities, and seizing a large quantity of bomb-making material in the city of Faridabad, near New Delhi.
Indian security agencies have since carried out a series of raids in Kashmir as part of their investigation into the car blast, questioning hundreds while detaining scores others.
Indian police said Saturday they used DNA to identify the car’s driver and that he was a Kashmiri doctor. Government forces blew up his family home in the southern district of Pulwama on Thursday night, officials said.
In the past, troops have demolished homes of suspects they accuse of being tied to militants fighting against Indian rule in Kashmir as a punishment.
Stored explosives
Police had brought the explosive material seized in Faridabad to Kashmir as part of their investigation and were “kept securely in an open area” at the police station, where the investigation that led to the suspected militant cell began last month, according to Prabhat, the top officer.
Prabhat said a team of experts was taking samples for forensic investigation when the blast occurred, calling it an “accidental explosion.”
“Any other speculation into the cause of this incident is unnecessary,” he said.
The blast could be heard from miles away in Srinagar, locals said. Some of the victims’ body parts were recovered from nearby houses, over 100 meters (328 feet) away from the police station. Multiple houses also suffered damage.
“The explosion produced a deafening roar that rattled houses and flung open windows closed tight,” Bashir Ahmed, a resident, told The Associated Press.
Relatives of killed civilian protest his death
Nearly a dozen relatives of Mohammad Shafi Parray, killed in the blast, assembled at his home in Nowgam and marched in protest to the police station, chanting: “We want justice.”
One of Parry’s relatives, who didn’t give her name, said the deceased, a tailor by profession, was summoned by the police Friday night. “Why did (the police) take him?” she shouted.
A local police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with departmental policy, said the tailor had been called to the station to stitch bags for storing explosive material samples.
India and Pakistan each administer a part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety.
Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle.