A day after the Red Fort blast, Centra decided to hand over the investigation to the National Investigation Agency.
The decision was taken during a high-level security review meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday morning at his residence.
“Shah chaired a high-level security review meeting at 11 am. The meeting was attended by Union Home Minister, IB Director, Delhi Police Commissioner and NIA Director General. DGP Jammu and Kashmir also physically joined the meeting,” it said.
A source said that the Directors General of Police of Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir collected information about the Red Fort blast and the police operation during which they seized 358 kg of explosives suspected to be ammonium nitrate from the rented residence of one of the accused in Dawg village in Faridabad on Sunday.
After the explosion, Shah said that investigating agencies were looking at “all angles” and were not ruling out any possibility. “I hope that our agencies will come to a conclusion about the cause of the explosion in a short time, and that the senior FSL team will also arrive,” he said.
Asked whether it was a terrorist attack, Shah, who later visited the explosion site, said: “It is difficult to determine the cause of the accident. Until the samples obtained from the explosion site are analyzed by forensic authorities and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, we cannot say anything. But we are not ruling anything out, and we are investigating the matter from all angles.”
The Hyundai i20, which was the source of the blast, was first spotted at around 7.30 am outside the Asian Hospital in Faridabad and later entered the capital from the Badarpur toll booth via Faridabad Road at around 8.13 am on Monday, Delhi Police said on Tuesday.
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Detectives probing the Red Fort blast have focused on a 34-year-old resident of Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir, who bought a Hyundai i20 on October 29.
(marks for translation) Ministry of Interior
