National

Home Minister Amit Shah arrived to supervise rescue and search operation at the Delhi blast affected site late this evening at 6:55 pm yesterday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed concern and called up Shah to take stock of the situation.

 

Shah said: "The NIA and the Forensic experts and the National Security Guard have already been mobilised and the Crime Branch of Delhi police had arrived the scene within 10 minutes of the incident and began extensive search operations, besides shifting the injured to the hospital." 

 

Seventeen bodies were recovered from the Delhi blast site where 35 others suffered grusome splinter injuries after a powerful explosion that took place in a car halted in signal close to the park near the Red Fort Metro Railway Station in old Delhi this evening. 

 

The intensity of the explosion was so powerful that it destroyed several cars outside the Metro Station, following which the entire area was cordoned off, and the Delhi Police deployed a team of Special Cell to coordinate the operations. The powerful explosion, besides leaving multiple vehicles in flames, also shattered the window panes of the nearby houses, the officials estimated.

 

The police identified the car owner and detained him. The car was registered in Pulwama, Jammu & Kashmir.

 

The police have also sounded a high alert. Besides, the Centre sent similar cautions to the entire Metro cities in the country, including the NCR. 

 

The visuals of the blast, meanwhile, have gone viral that showed plumes of fire billowing from the burning cars.

 

In a major security operation in Faridabad near Delhi, a team from the Jammu and Kashmir Police meanwhile had recovered 350 kgs of explosives suspected to be ammonium nitrate, along with an AK-47 rifle, a pistol, three magazines, 20 timers, a walkie-talkie set and ammunition from a rented accommodation at Dhauj village yesterday afternoon - barely hours of the Red Fort explosion, said police. A doctor from Jammu and Kashmir was also arrested during the operation, they added. The Delhi Police was yet to estimate whether the seizure of arms and ammunition cache had any link with the fatal evening blast that had a cracking noise.

 

The Red Fort, known in India as the Lal Qila, is a 17th-century Mughal-era fort located in the old city and visited by tourists through the year.

 

The investigation officials, as Home Minister Shah said, have already gathered some CCTV footages of the blast dite from different angles.