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A high-intensity explosion ripped through a slow-moving car at a traffic signal near the Red Fort metro station on Monday evening, killing at least nine people and gutting several vehicles, officials said.
Twenty people, including two women, were injured in the blast that took place on a busy evening when the area was milling with people. The injured were taken to the LNJP Hospital, a few kilometres away.
The police said that the car, in which the blast took place, had three occupants, adding that they are also probing if it was a suicide bomber attack.
“The blast occurred in a moving Hyundai i20 car in which three people were sitting. We have not found any pellet or puncture in the body of the injured, which is unusual in a blast. We are investigating all angles,” said a senior police officer.
Eyewitnesses said that the explosion was deafening and they were unable to hear anything clearly after several minutes. The loud blast was heard over a wide area up to ITO, covering around two kms, they said.
It shattered the window panes of vehicles parked several metres away and the glass panels of the Red Fort metro station.
The Delhi police detained car owner Mohammed Salman late in the evening and questioned him about the vehicle, the officer said, adding that he sold it to a person in Okhla namely Devendra one-and-a-half years ago.
Later, the vehicle was sold to someone in Ambala and it was again sold to a man named Tariq in Pulwama, and the police are tracing the people, the officer said.
A high alert has been sounded in Delhi, and security has been beefed up at city border points, with vehicle checking intensified.
According to PTI, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said investigators are keeping all options open while probing the blast near the Red Fort that claimed eight lives.
The Railway Protection Force, in close coordination with the Government Railway Police, is on high alert with strict security arrangements at all stations in the Delhi-NCR region following a bomb blast near the Red Fort that killed eight people and injured many on Monday.
