Nayanima Basu 15 November
Delhi Car Blast: A large explosion occurred at the Nowgam Police Station late Friday night, which claimed nearly 13 lives and injured several others, resulted in the destruction of much of the critical evidence needed for the ongoing investigations into the Delhi car blast incident that took place on November 10, multiple sources told ABP Live has learnt.
The explosion at the Nowgam Police Station occurred after 11 PM Friday night while police personnel and a team of investigators were examining approximately 300 kilograms of explosive material. The blast was apparently triggered by a “hidden detonator” or a “live fuse” that may have caused the explosion, according to top-level official sources who spoke to ABP Live on the condition of anonymity.
Nowgam, located south of Srinagar, is a prominent village situated in the Anantnag District of the Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory. Jammu and Kashmir, which has been witnessing a massive surge in counterinsurgency since 1989, has once again taken centre stage in India’s national security planning even as the government claimed that militancy has become drastically reduced there since 2019 due to the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A in that year. The move stripped J&K of its special status and converted it into a Union Territory while bifurcating the erstwhile state into two UTs of J&K and Ladakh.
Sources quoted above also said, the explosive material that went off was specially flown in from Delhi for further forensic study and evidence.
“There was a huge amount of explosive material that was lying there and that exploded either accidentally or there were some hidden detonators inside that went unnoticed. These police stations also have storage facilities for IEDs and grenades which also exploded,” said a senior official, who did not rule out the involvement of Jaish-e-Mohammed elements into this.
The J&K security agencies are also not ruling out the involvement of JeM’s proxy organisation People’s Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF) into this incident, according to the sources.
The PAFF, which is actively involved in insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, emerged around August 2019, following the abrogation of Article 370. It is widely considered a front to help JeM and other Pakistan-based terror groups operate under a new nomenclature, possibly to evade international scrutiny and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) noose on state-sponsored terrorism.
ABP Live had earlier reported in the wake of the Delhi car blast, which claimed 13 lives, security agencies have been given the task to deploy a nationwide crackdown of overground workers (OGWs) and cutouts, who work at the behest of JeM operating out of the Kashmir valley.
