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 Saturday. The blast occurred in the Nowgam area of Srinagar, the region's main city, late Friday when a forensic team and police were examining the explosive material, said Nalin Prabhat, the region's police chief. He ruled out foul play, saying it was an accident, per the AP. 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 blast could be heard from miles away, locals said. Some of the victims' body parts were recovered from nearby houses, more than 325 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," a resident says. 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.
The police station blast came days after Monday's deadly car explosion in New Delhi, which killed at least eight. 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'd dismantled a suspected militant cell operating from the disputed region, arresting at least seven, including two doctors, and seizing a large quantity of bomb-making material in Faridabad. Indian security agencies have since carried out a series of raids in Kashmir as part of their investigation into the car blast. On Saturday, police say they used DNA to identify the driver, a Kashmiri doctor. Government forces blew up his family home in the district of Pulwama on Thursday, officials said.
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In the past, troops have demolished homes of suspects accused of militant ties in Kashmir as punishment. Police had brought the explosive material seized in Faridabad to Kashmir as part of their investigation, and it had been "kept securely in an open area" at the police station, where the investigation that led to the suspected militant cell began last month, per Prabhat. The official said experts were 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 noted.
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