NEW DELHI: India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) said on Sunday that it had arrested a resident of occupied Kashmir in connection with a car blast that killed eight people and injured at least 20 others in Delhi last week.
The country’s counter-terrorism law enforcement body further announced that the attack was carried out by a “suicide bomber,” who it said was also from held Kashmir, where police have conducted sweeping raids in recent days.
Announcing “a breakthrough” in the investigation, the NIA said in a statement it had arrested Amir Rashid Ali, “in whose name the car involved in the attack was registered”.
He had “conspired with the alleged suicide bomber, Umar Un Nabi, to unleash the terror attack”, it added, without specifying any possible motive.
Nabi, a resident of held Kashmir, was an assistant professor in general medicine at a university in the northern state of Haryana, according to the counter-terrorism agency, which said it had seized a vehicle belonging to him.
Ali had come to Delhi to “facilitate the purchase of the car which was eventually used as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (IED) to trigger the blast”, the NIA said.
Delhi blast
The explosion on Monday took place near a busy metro station close to the landmark Red Fort in the capital’s Old Delhi quarter, where the prime minister delivers the annual Independence Day address.
A hospital official has said the blast killed 12 people. It was unclear whether the toll included Nabi.
The NIA’s statement said the attack “claimed 10 innocent lives and left 32 others injured”.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called the attack a “conspiracy”, and his government vowed to bring the “perpetrators, their collaborators and their sponsors” to justice.
It was the most significant security incident since April 22, when 26 tourists were killed at a hill station in India-occupied Kashmir’s Pahalgam, triggering clashes with Pakistan.
On Friday, nine people were killed when confiscated explosives blew up at a police station in occupied Kashmir, in what authorities said was an accident.
Local media reported that a militant organisation had claimed responsibility for it, which police dismissed.
The explosives had been recovered from Haryana state just before the powerful car blast in Delhi, according to the police.
Indian media have widely connected the Delhi blast with a string of arrests just hours prior.
Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2025
