Refernce to Ndtv.Law enforcers have established that ammonium nitrate fuel oil (ANFO) was the most important explosive that was involved in the fatal car explosion near the Red Fort of Delhi on the 10 th of November. The blast claimed the lives of nine people and injured more than twenty raising serious questions on the manner the explosive, which is a powerful chemical, was acquired and managed.
Some of the things that Investigators have discovered in the meantime.
As per initial forensic investigation reports that were passed to NDTV, the bomb was loaded into a white Hyundai i20 having Haryana registration plates. The vehicle had already been sold a few times, a move that might have been intended to confuse the investigators one of which was to a man in the Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir.
According to the sources, the car breached into Delhi via the Badarpur border and it was parked at the Red Fort almost three hours. The suspected terrorist, Dr. Umar Mohammed, was recorded on CCTV cameras inside the vehicle the whole time, this could be in order to avoid being caught by security checks.
That was at 6.52 p.m. when the car halted at a red light, at one of the busiest roads of Old Delhi, and then blew up with tremendous power. Indeed, according to Delhi Police Commissioner Satish Golcha, twenty-two neighboring vehicles were on fire, and remains of humans were spread around.
Future perspective of the Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil (ANFO)
Ammonium nitrate (NH 4 NO 3) is white crystalline chemical compound, which is most often used in fertilizers. On its own, it is not explosive. But when combined with a petroleum-based explosive such as fuel oil it forms ANFO a highly powerful and cheap industrial explosive.
Regardless of its common usage in the mining and construction industry, ANFO can be very dangerous in the wrong hands. It needs an external detonator to cause the explosion that emits a great amount of heat and energy and usually causes a long-term fire and massive damages.
It is cheap to manufacture and it does not go out of shape when acting as a storage medium, by which reason it is appealing to industries and unluckily to terrorists as well.
Legal Restrictions in India
According to the 2012 Ammonium Nitrate Rules in India (as amended in 2021) any mixture of ammonium nitrate weighing more than 45 percent of ammonium nitrate is officially an explosive. It implies that the process of manufacturing, transporting, and storage of ANFO must have a legitimate license issued by the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO).
Illegal acquisition or utilisation is a crime. The way the suspects managed to get such a huge amount acquired undetected is one of the biggest questions to the investigators.
A Preferred Bombs in Terrorist attacks across the world.
ANFO destructive capability has seen it become a frequent tool in terroristic attack throughout the world. The most notorious was the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995 where the extremists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols carried out an attack with a bit over 2,300 kg of ANFO on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building leaving 168 dead and hundreds injured.
It has been employed in other attacks as well – 1970 Wisconsin sterling hall bombing and the 2003 British Consulate bombing in Istanbul as well as the 1983 U.S. embassy bombing in Beirut.
ANFO traces have been identified in the 2012 pune explosions and the 2011 Mumbai triple explosions that killed 26 and injured more than 130 people respectively in India.
The Faridabad Connection and Doctor Terror Network.
Another worrying trend that the Red Fort explosion has uncovered is the role played by medical practitioners in terrorism. The police officers have recently raided more than 300 kg of ammonium nitrate in two houses of Dr. Mujammil Shakeel who is also a doctor at the Al-Falah Hospital in Faridabad.
Dr. Shakeel, and Dr. Adil Ahmed Rather of the Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, was also arrested a few hours before the Delhi explosion. Researchers suspect that the Red Fort bomber, Dr. Umar Mohammed, was also part of the same terror module associated with Jaish-e- Mohammed. He is said to have panned out at the arrests and blew himself up in the car making the incidence a possible suicide attack.
Since then, police have found out that there was a larger white-collar terror network of radicalised professionals pretending to be doctors to evade suspicion. The other Gujarat based doctor, Ahmed Saiyed has also been arrested on the basis of carrying the materials to make ricin which is a lethal biological poison.
The Road Ahead
The Delhi Police have referred to several provisions of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), the Explosive Substances Act as well as the provisions of murder and attempted murder.
In the meantime, the raids have been ongoing in Jammu and Kashmir, such as Srinagar, Anantnag, Ganderbal, and Shopian, and agencies are tracking a bigger terror network of educated militants who have been trained to use trust and avoid being detected.
Looking for website Designing ? Connect with wovved today.
