At least nine people were killed and twenty nine others were injured when a powerful explosion ripped through the Nowgam police station on the outskirts of Srinagar late on Friday night, officials said. Most of those killed were policemen and members of the Forensic Science Laboratory team. A Naib Tehsildar was also among the dead. Several of the injured are in critical condition.
The blast occurred at around 11:20 pm and was heard across neighbourhoods nearly thirty kilometres away. The explosion destroyed the police station building, set several vehicles on fire and caused heavy damage to nearby houses. Identification efforts are underway since some bodies were burnt beyond recognition and body parts were found up to two hundred metres from the site. Officials confirmed that SIA Inspector Asrar Ahmad of Kupwara and Naib Tehsildar Muzaffar Ahmad of Soibugh, Budgam, were among the deceased.
Firefighters, ambulances and rescue teams reached the site immediately while security forces sealed all approaches to Nowgam. DGP Nalin Prabhat and other senior officers supervised rescue operations through the night.
Authorities said the explosion took place inside the police station premises where confiscated explosive materials were stored. These materials, believed to include large quantities of ammonium nitrate, had been seized during joint raids by Jammu and Kashmir Police and Faridabad Police after the busting of an alleged doctors’ terror module. The seized explosives had been transported from Faridabad to the Nowgam police station and were under examination when the blast occurred.
An FSL team was reportedly inspecting the materials at the time. Investigators are looking into whether the explosion happened during a scheduled inspection in the presence of a magistrate and FSL specialists.
The Nowgam police station had been central to an ongoing investigation that began with Jaish e Mohammad posters surfacing in local neighbourhoods and later expanded into a multi state probe covering Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The investigation led to the arrest of three doctors from Faridabad and Saharanpur. Another suspect, Umar Nabi, was identified as the key accused in the Red Fort car blast in Delhi earlier this week that killed thirteen people.
Police had seized nearly two thousand nine hundred kilograms of suspected explosive material during the raids. This included ammonium nitrate, phosphorous, potash, electronic circuits, batteries and remote control devices used for assembling improvised explosive devices. Authorities have yet to clarify how much of the seized material was stored at Nowgam or what quantity was being inspected at the moment of the blast.
The injured have been taken to the Army’s 92 Base Hospital, SKIMS Soura and a local private hospital. A complete assessment of the damage to the police station and nearby buildings is expected to take time.
