India says accomplice of Delhi car blast ‘suicide bomber’ held

NEW DELHI: Indian authorities said on Sunday that a deadly car blast in New Delhi last week was an attack carried out by a “suicide bomber”, announcing the arrest of an accomplice.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), the country’s counter-terrorism law enforcement body, said the attacker and the second suspect were both from IIOJK, where police have carried out sweeping raids in recent days.

Announcing “a breakthrough” in the investigation, the NIA said it had arrested Amir Rashid Ali, describing him as an accomplice of the “suicide bomber” under whose name “the car involved in the attack was registered”.

He 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”, according to a statement from the counter-terrorism agency.

It identified the driver as Umar Un Nabi, a resident of IIOJK who was an assistant professor in general medicine at a university in the northern state of Haryana.