At least nine people have been killed and 27 more injured after a cache of confiscated explosives detonated in a police station in Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir’s main city.
The stockpile exploded late on Friday night at a police station in the Nowgam area in the south of Srinagar.
Most of those killed were policemen and forensic team officials who were examining the explosives at the time of the detonation, unnamed sources told Indian broadcaster NDTV.
Two officials from the Srinagar administration also died in the blast.
With five people still in critical condition, the death toll could continue to climb, according to the media outlet.
“Not a terror attack. Police say it’s a very unfortunate incident,” NDTV’s senior executive editor Aditya Raj Kaul said in a post on social media.
“The blast happened when a forensics team and the police were checking the explosive material stored at the police station,” he said.
The huge blast comes days after Monday’s deadly car explosion in New Delhi, which killed at least 12 people near the city’s historic Red Fort and which officials have called a “terror” incident.
The explosion in the Indian capital occurred just hours after police arrested several people and seized explosive materials as well as assault rifles.
Police said the suspects were linked to Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), a Pakistan-based group that is seeking to end Indian rule in Kashmir, and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, a Kashmir offshoot linked to JeM.
Police in Indian-administered Kashmir also detained more than 650 people as part of their investigation following the New Delhi car blast.
According to reports, the Nowgam police station, where the blast took place on Friday, had led an investigation into posters that were displayed around the area by JeM, warning it would carry out attacks on security forces and “outsiders”.
Police said their investigation into the posters exposed a “white-collar terror ecosystem, involving radicalised professionals and students in contact with foreign handlers, operating from Pakistan and other countries”.
Police also recovered nearly 3,000kg (3 tonnes) of ammonium nitrate, a commonly used material in bomb making, saying the armed group was stockpiling enough explosives to carry out a major attack in India.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947, and both claim the Himalayan territory.
The two countries have fought three wars over Kashmir since the nations were partitioned in 1947, and tensions remain high between New Delhi and Islamabad over the status of the territory.
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