At least nine people were killed and several others injured as a massive blast rocked Nowgam police station in Srinagar. The incident took place late on Friday night after policemen and forensic officials accidentally detonated explosives. The site in Jammu and Kashmir was being used to store explosives seized earlier this month from the Red Fort terror module.
According to an update shared by PTI, the blast took place while authorities were extracting samples from a recently seized cache of explosives. Officials said the material was part of the 360 kilograms of explosives recovered from the rented residence of arrested doctor Muzammil Ganaie. It was being sampled as part of the ongoing investigation into the Red Fort blast.
The blast could reportedly be heard 30 kilometres away, and visuals showed the police station and several nearby vehicles going up in flames. An Indian Express report added that a large number of ambulances and fire tenders were rushed to the area shortly before midnight. Roads leading to the area were also closed as senior police and security officials headed to Nowgam.
The massive blast smashed the quiet of the night and damaged the police station building. Small successive explosions prevented immediate rescue operations by the bomb disposal squad. While some of the explosives recovered have been kept at Forensic Lab of police, the major part of the 360 kg of explosives was stored at the police station, where the primary case for the terror module was registered.
How is Nowgam linked to Red Fort blast?
Nowgam police station on the outskirts of Srinagar has become embroiled in the ‘white-collar’ terror module case after an FIR was registered over objectionable posters in the area. Posters threatening police and security forces had appeared on walls in mid-October. The Srinagar Police had subsequently registered a case and formed a dedicated team to find the miscreants.
Frame-by-frame analysis of CCTV footage had helped them to identify the first three suspects — arrested Arif Nisar Dar alias Sahil, Yasir-ul-Ashraf and Maqsood Ahmad Dar alias Shahid. The trio (who already had cases of stone pelting registered against them) were seen pasting the posters. Their interrogation led to the arrest of Maulvi Irfan Ahmad — a former paramedic turned Imam (preacher) from Shopian who supplied the posters. He is also believed to have radicalised several doctors using his easy access to the medical community.
The trail ultimately led the Srinagar police to Al Falah University in Faridabad, where they arrested Dr Muzammil Ahmad Ganaie and Dr Shaheen Sayeed. It was here that the massive cache of chemicals, including ammonium nitrate, potassium nitrate, and sulphur, was seized.