At least nine people are dead and 32 people are injured after a cache of confiscated explosives detonated inside a police station in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
The region’s police director-general, Nalin Prabhat, said the blast occurred in the region’s main city Srinagar late on Friday, local time, when a team of forensic experts and police were examining the explosive material.
The huge blast ripped through the police station and set the compound and multiple vehicles on fire.
Small successive explosions prevented immediate rescue operations by the bomb disposal squad, news agency Press Trust of India reported.
Of the 32 people injured, some are in a critical condition.
Mr Prabhat ruled out any foul play, saying it was an “accidental explosion”.
“Any other speculation into the cause of this incident is unnecessary,” he said.
Most of the dead are believed to be police and forensic officials, but identification of the bodies is still ongoing.
The Reuters news agency cited a police source as saying some bodies were completely burnt, and the intensity of the blast was such that some body parts were recovered in neighbourhoods up to 200 metres away from the station.
A woman mourns her brother, Muhammad Shafi Parry, a tailor killed in an explosion at a police station in Kashmir. (Reuters: Sharafat Ali)
The blast came days after Monday’s deadly car explosion in 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 explosion in the Indian capital occurred hours after police in Kashmir said they had dismantled a suspected militant cell operating from the disputed region to the outskirts of New Delhi.
At least seven people, including two doctors, were arrested, and police seized weapons and a large quantity of bomb-making material in Faridabad, a city in Haryana state, which is near New Delhi.
India’s anti-terror force is leading the investigation into the deadly car explosion in Delhi. (AP: Manish Swarup)
Indian security agencies have carried out a series of raids in Kashmir since then as part of their investigation into the car blast, questioning hundreds while detaining scores of others.
Indian police said on 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 the homes of suspects accused of being tied to militants fighting against Indian rule in Kashmir as a punishment.
Mr Prabhat said police had brought the explosive material seized in Faridabad to Kashmir as part of their investigation and it was “kept securely in an open area” at the police station, where the investigation that led to the suspected militant cell began last month.
The blast occurred in the Nowgam area of Srinagar. (Reuters: Sharafat Ali)
Mr Prabhat said a team of experts was taking samples for forensic investigation at the time of the blast on Friday.
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.
AP/Reuters