Indian authorities said Sunday that the deadly car explosion in New Delhi earlier this week was an attack carried out by a “suicide bomber,” and announced the arrest of an accomplice.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), the country’s counter-terrorism body, said the attacker and the second suspect were both from Indian-occupied Kashmir, where police have carried out sweeping raids in recent days.
Announcing “a breakthrough” in the investigation, the NIA announced that it had arrested Amir Rashid Ali, calling him an accomplice of the “suicide bomber” in whose name “the car involved in the attack was registered.”
He had come to Delhi to “facilitate the purchase of the car that was ultimately used as an improvised explosive device (IED) to cause the explosion,” the counter-terrorism agency said in a statement.
He identified the driver of the vehicle as Umarun Nabi, a resident of occupied Kashmir who was an assistant professor of general medicine at a university in the northern state of Haryana.
Monday’s explosion took place near a busy metro station near the iconic Red Fort in the capital’s Old Delhi neighborhood, where the prime minister delivers the annual Independence Day speech.
A hospital official said the explosion killed 12 people. It was unclear whether Nabi was included in the toll. The NIA statement said the attack “claimed 10 innocent lives and left 32 others injured.”
The NIA claimed that it had seized another vehicle belonging to Nabi.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the attack a “conspiracy” and his government promised to bring the “perpetrators, their collaborators and their sponsors” to justice.
