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2 weeks ago
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India has confirmed it is treating the explosion that killed 12 people outside Delhi’s Red Fort on Monday as a “terror incident” perpetrated by “anti-national forces”.
The statement by the cabinet, led by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, confirmed mounting speculation that a terrorist attack was behind the blast that took place during peak time in one of the capital’s busiest areas and outside one of India’s major landmarks.
The force of the explosion, from a car that was driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic, threw bodies into the air and caused nearby vehicles to catch fire. By Wednesday, the number of dead rose to 12 after several people died from their injuries, while more than 30 others were wounded. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Delhi for more than a decade.
The cabinet statement on Wednesday night condemned what it called a “dastardly and cowardly act that has led to the loss of innocent lives” and vowed justice for the lives lost.
The national investigation agency, India’s anti-terrorism squad, were handling the investigation and a case was filed by police under the country’s anti-terror law. Declaring the case a terrorism incident gives investigators expansive powers to carry out raids and arrests.
The cabinet statement did not give any further details on the nature of the terrorism behind the attack. However, earlier in the day police confirmed they had detained five people in the Pulwama district of the disputed region of Kashmir in connection with the attack.
Though the link was not directly made by police, it came after they claimed to have uncovered a “interstate and transnational terror” cell, allegedly connected to the Islamist group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) operating in a state neighbouring Delhi.
The Pakistan-based insurgent group is primarily active in India-administered Kashmir, a region that has disputed between India and Pakistan since their formation in 1947.
Police said they had had uncovered 2,900kg of explosives materials, as well as chemicals, detonators and guns, in raids early on Monday morning. At least seven people, including two Kashmiri doctors, were arrested as part of the terror cell raids.
Several sources briefing India media alleged that investigators were determining whether the driver of the car that had caused the Delhi explosion was part of the same terror cell, and whether Monday night’s attack was a panicked response to the arrests and raids.
The Red Fort explosion is the first terror incident in India since Pulwama attack in April, when gunmen singled out more than 20 Hindu tourists and shot them dead. India blamed Pakistan for masterminding the attack and in May retaliated with crossborder missiles it said was targeting camps and JeM hideouts.
Pakistan denied any involvement in the Pulwama attack. It hit back with missile and drone strikes, bringing the two nuclear-armed countries the closest they had been to war in decades, before a US-led ceasefire stopped hostilities.
In the aftermath, India repeatedly vowed that any further act of terror on Indian soil would be seen as an “act of war”.
With relations already at historic lows, India’s confirmation of the Red Fort blast as a terrorism incident risks pushing the two countries back towards full hostilities that could further destabilise the region. After Monday’s Red Fort blast, the Modi cabinet reiterated that it would take a policy of “zero tolerance towards terrorism in all its forms”.
On the day after the explosion, a suicide bomber targeted a court complex in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, killing 12 people. The Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack but the country’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, blamed “Indian state terrorism” for being behind the blast, and alleged it took part at the “behest of India”.
On Tuesday, India’s home minister Amit Shah, said he had instructed senior officials to “hunt down each and every culprit behind this incident”. “Everyone involved in this act will face the full wrath of our agencies,” he said.
