Nine people were killed and 32 injured when explosives confiscated during a recent investigation into a suspected terrorist cell blew up at a police station in Jammu and Kashmir late Friday, officials said.
Jammu and Kashmir police chief Nalin Prabhat said it was an “accidental explosion” while a forensic team was examining the explosives at the Nowgam police station in Jammu and Kashmir’s Srinagar.
The police station suffered extensive damage and adjoining buildings were impacted, Prabhat said at a media briefing on Saturday.
The dead included police investigators and photographers, Prabhat said. Five of the 32 injured are in serious condition, NDTV news channel reported.
The explosives, chemicals and other material being examined were part of a huge cache recovered from Faridabad in the border area of the Indian capital on November 9 and 10, Prabhat said.
The explosives were transported to the Nowgam police station where the first complaint in the case was registered according to set investigative procedures.
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Prabhat said the process of forensic and chemical examination of the “voluminous recovery” by the forensic team was going on for two days to gather samples to be forwarded to the forensic laboratory.
Given the unstable and sensitive nature of the explosives and chemicals, they were being handled with utmost caution, the police official said. “However, during the process, an accidental explosion took place. Any other speculation about the cause of this incident is unnecessary.”
The police station blast comes days after an explosion of a car at a busy crossing near India’s iconic Red Fort in New Delhi killed at least 10 people on November 10. The government has identified it as a terrorist attack. Links between the explosion and the recovery of explosives are being investigated.
© Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
