Three days after a car exploded near the Red Fort in the Indian capital, Delhi, killing eight people, investigators have told the BBC they are checking if it has any links to the recent arrests of seven men by police in Indian-administered Kashmir.
They say they are also investigating if it has any connections to the recent seizure of 2,900kg of explosives from Faridabad, a Delhi suburb.
On Wednesday, the federal cabinet issued a resolution calling it “a heinous terror incident, perpetrated by anti-national forces”.
The reaction matched earlier comments by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who spoke of a “conspiracy”, warned that “the conspirators will not be spared” and “all those responsible will be brought to justice”.
Similar comments were made by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah. Mr Shah, who is in-charge of internal security, said he had instructed officials “to hunt down each and every culprit behind this incident”.
Police confirmed that they had registered cases under the anti-terror law Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) – in addition to the Explosives Act and criminal code – and the investigation was handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), India’s counter-terrorism law enforcement agency.
The police or the NIA are yet to hold a press conference or issue a formal statement on the investigation.
But in the meantime, leaks and source-based reports in the Indian media have led to all sorts of unverified information making headlines.
They have also raised a lot of unanswered questions – the most important of which is whether the explosion is linked to the recent arrests of seven men by Kashmir police and the seizure of weapons and explosives from Faridabad.
Just hours before Monday evening’s blast, police in the Indian federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir put out a statement naming the arrested men, including two doctors, from Kashmir and the states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
They said they had seized some weapons, including two automatic rifles, and 2,900kg of bomb-making material from Faridabad.
The Kashmir police statement spoke of “a white collar terror ecosystem” and added that they were looking to “trace and apprehend” some more people whose names had cropped up during investigation.
The NIA told the BBC that they have just taken over the Delhi blast case and are examining the “voluminous documents” and are unable to say much at this point.
But they say they are investigating every angle, including any linkages between the arrests and a man in a viral photo who’s being described in the Indian media as the car’s alleged driver.
Media reports have said the man drove around the city for hours and was parked in a nearby parking lot for three hours before reaching the spot of the blast. The NIA or the police have not confirmed any of these details.
Monday evening’s blast took place at 18:52 local time (13:22 GMT) when a slow-moving vehicle stopped at a busy traffic signal and went up in a ball of fire.
Footage from the location showed remains of a charred white car and a number of other gutted vehicles, including an autorickshaw and cycle rickshaws.
Within hours of the blast, Home Minister Shah confirmed the explosion had taken place in the white Hyundai i20.
But officially, there has been no information forthcoming on who the car belonged to or how it blew up.
The iconic Red Fort, near where the explosion took place, remains closed for now as the investigation proceeds.
Additional reporting by Auqib Javeed in Srinagar
