Accidental blast kills 9 in Jammu and Kashmir

An accidental blast took place in Jammu and Kashmir's Nowgam police station, located on the outskirts of Srinagar, on Friday. The incident led to the deaths of at least nine people, with several others sustaining injuries.

The blast, which happened on late Friday night, mostly hurt and injured police personnel and forensic officials, according to officials quoted by PTI news agency.
At least 24 police personnel and three civilians were admitted to different hospitals in the city, officials said, adding that the bodies were later taken to Police Control Room in Srinagar.
Seven bodies were recovered from the spot, with mortal remains of two others, after the explosion, officials told HT. They further said that the deceased are yet to be identified.

Officials said that the blast took place during the handling of the explosive material which had been seized from Faridabad in Haryana, PTI news agency reported.

The authorities were trying to extract samples of the large cache of explosives taken by security personnel after the busting of the ‘white-collar’ terror module.
The seized material, which included 360 kilograms of explosives, were found in the rented house of arrested doctor Muzammil Ganaie. The explosives were being sampled as part of the probe into the terror module, officials said.
Some of the explosive material seized has been kept at Forensic Lab of police, while the majority had been stored at the police station. A primary case for the terror module had also been registered there.
The massive blast in the night damaged the building of the police station, following which injured security personnel were hospitalised.
However, the immediate rescue of the police officials by the bomb disposal squad could not take place owing to small successive explosions, the PTI report stated.

The blast comes weeks after posters threatening police officials and security personnel surfaced on the walls of Bunpora in Nowgam in mid-October. The Srinagar Police had registered a case regarding the incident, treating it as a serious matter, and also formed a team dedicated to the investigation.
Three suspects -- Arif Nisar Dar alias Sahil (now arrested), Yasir-ul-Ashraf and Maqsood Ahmad Dar alias Shahid, had been identified in that case, reported PTI. A frame-by-frame analysis of footage from CCTV surveillance was taken for the identification.
The three identified persons were seen pasting the posters, and officials also found out that they already had cases of stone pelting filed against them.
The questioning of the suspects led to a former paramedic turned Imam (preacher) from Shopian, Maulvi Irfan Ahmad, who was arrested. The preacher had supplied the threatening posters to the accused, and was further involved in radicalising doctors, making use of his easy access to the medical community, according to the PTI report.

The trail of the investigation ended at the Al Falah University in Faridabad, where two doctors – Muzammil Ahmad Ganaie and Shaheen Sayeed were arrested.
Apart from the arrests, the police recovered a massive cache of chemicals, including ammonium nitrate, potassium nitrate, and sulphur, from these doctors.
The blast in a car near Delhi's Red Fort, which claimed 11 lives, was also linked to the terror module in Faridabad. Dr Umar un-Nabi, the driver of the car that exploded, was also associated with the Al-Falah University in Faridabad.

Indian National Investigation Agency was brought into the probe after the explosion in Delhi, following which at least four doctors linked to the terror module and working at Al-Falah were identified.