Red Fort blast: Car parked at nearby lot for about 2 hours, cops say
CCTV footage shows the car’s two-hour halt near Red Fort before the blast; forensic teams from NSG and FSL are examining debris for traces of explosives.
The Hyundai i20 believed to have triggered Monday’s deadly blast near the Red Fort was parked for nearly two hours at a lot adjacent to the monument before it exploded while moving slowly on Netaji Subhash Marg, investigators familiar with the initial probe said on Monday.
Mangled remains of the vehicles at the site. (Sanjeev Verma/HT)
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Investigators working on the blast, who asked not to be identified, said they used CCTV footage to trace the car’s movement in the final few hours in the build-up to the deadly explosion. They said the footage shows the car, with three occupants, heading from the Daryaganj Market towards the Sunehri Masjid parking lot beside the Red Fort on Shantivan Marg around 4pm.
About two hours later, it was seen leaving the parking lot, taking a U-turn near Old Delhi Railway Station, and proceeding towards Lower Subhash Marg.
“It was being driven on the Chhata Rail Chowk stretch before taking a U-turn and moving towards Lower Subhash Marg. The footage shows the car slowing down at a signal when the explosion occurred,” said an officer aware of the investigation. All three occupants were killed instantly.
Blast near Red Fort: What we know
The car bore a Haryana registration number and was last registered to a man in Gurugram, but had changed hands several times in recent weeks, another investigator said.
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A copy of the registration certificate (RC), accessed by HT, showed the car HR26CE7674was first registered in 2014 to “Mohd Salman,” a resident of Shanti Nagar in Gurugram.
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A copy of the registration certificate (RC), accessed by HT, showed the car HR26CE7674was first registered in 2014 to “Mohd Salman,” a resident of Shanti Nagar in Gurugram.
Investigators said Salman sold the vehicle to a man identified as “Devender,” who later sold it to someone in Ambala, Haryana. “The registered owner has been detained in Delhi, but the vehicle was resold two to three times. We are tracing the current owner,” an officer at the blast site said.
Police have not identified the most recent buyer. Ambala Police have launched a parallel inquiry, while Gurugram Police are assisting other investigating agencies.
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Investigators are also looking into reports that a Maruti Eeco van near the i20 at the time of the blast was severely damaged and its occupants either killed or critically injured.
Police initially focussed on determining whether the explosion originated from a “cylinder-type device” inside the car. The RC lists the i20 as a petrol-CNG model, but investigators are probing whether the CNG kit was retrofitted or factory-installed.
Officials added that they are also investigating if the source of the blast was an incendiary device that went off prematurely before it was transported to its intended target.
“There were no nails, splinters, shrapnel, wires, or traces of chemicals typically found in improvised explosive devices (IEDs). It doesn’t appear to be a conventional terror blast,” said an officer from Delhi Police’s Special Cell. “However, the impact was unusually powerful, so we cannot rule out any possibility yet. It could be accidental—or deliberate. Given recent incidents in Faridabad, every angle is being examined.”
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Teams from the National Security Guard (NSG), Special Cell, and Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) collected samples from the site late into the night. The area around Subhash Marg remains cordoned off as forensic experts analyse debris and residue to determine the exact cause of the explosion.
Prawesh Lama, an Associate Editor at Hindustan Times with nearly two decades of frontline reporting experience across India’s conflict zones, border regions, and disaster-hit areas. He writes on internal security, insurgency, the Northeast, and Left-wing extremism and has reported from India’s hinterland and some of the most sensitive and strategically critical regions.
Leena Dhankhar is Senior Editor and Bureau Chief, Gurugram, at Hindustan Times, where she has spent over 17 years chronicling the transformation of one of India's fastest-growing urban regions. From starting her career as a crime reporter to leading the Gurugram bureau, her journalism has been defined by investigative reporting, in-depth storytelling and an unwavering focus on public interest.
Over nearly two decades, she has reported extensively across crime, politics, civic governance, elections, real estate, environment, courts, sports, education and entertainment, covering Gurugram, Faridabad, Nuh and Palwal. Her reporting has exposed several major scams and systemic failures, including insurance frauds, waste management irregularities, illegal arms manufacturing units in Nuh, illegal mining in the Aravallis, organised crime networks and governance lapses affecting millions of residents.
Known for her investigative work and exclusive stories, Leena has reported on high-impact national issues, including the Nicaragua charter flight carrying Indian migrants that was turned back amid allegations of human trafficking, exposing the growing network of illegal immigration rackets. Her work has also focused on gang wars, prison administration, juvenile crime, women and child protection systems, the functioning of the Juvenile Justice Board and Child Welfare Committee, and environmental challenges such as pollution, waterlogging and deteriorating civic infrastructure.
Beyond hard news, Leena has extensively documented Haryana's rich heritage, forests and wildlife, bringing attention to the state's historical landmarks, biodiversity, conservation efforts and ecological challenges through immersive reportage and feature writing.
Her journalism has consistently gone beyond breaking news. She has documented Gurugram's rapid urbanisation through long-form narratives and enterprise reporting on issues ranging from pothole-ridden roads, flooding and waste management to the changing social fabric of India's Millennium City. She also writes widely read feature columns, including The Outsider, Changemaker, and Concern for Gurugram, profiling people, places and ideas shaping the city's identity.
Leena is the author of Gurugram School Murder, published by Juggernaut Books, a deeply reported account of one of India's most high-profile school murder investigations. She is currently working on her second book, an investigative work exploring some of India's most significant scams and fraud investigations.
Beyond print journalism, she has expanded her storytelling through public speaking and digital media. She is a TEDx speaker and has produced podcasts exploring Gurugram's transformation, civic challenges and untold stories. Her work reflects a commitment to narrative journalism that combines rigorous reporting with compelling storytelling.
A law graduate with an MBA in Human Resources, Leena brings a multidisciplinary perspective to her reporting, particularly on governance, public policy and legal affairs. She has travelled extensively across India to pursue investigative assignments, often reporting from remote locations and conflict-prone areas in search of stories that matter.
Jignasa Sinha is a Special Correspondent at Hindustan Times in New Delhi. With more than six years of reporting experience, she covers crime and policing in the national capital. Her beats also include Delhi prisons, the Delhi Fire Services and Delhi courts, while she regularly reports on gender, labour and social justice. Over the course of her career, Jignasa has reported on major criminal investigations, international crime syndicates, high-profile cyber fraud cases, law-and-order developments, protests, disasters and public institutions. Her reporting combines breaking news with in-depth, long form, human interest stories that examine the human impact of public policy, policing and the criminal justice system. In addition to reporting for the newspaper, she contributes to the Hindustan Times website and app, and plays an active role in coordinating on-ground coverage of major developments and breaking news across Delhi. Before joining Hindustan Times, Jignasa worked at The Indian Express newspaper in New Delhi, where she spent five years covering crime, Delhi airport, courts and health. She began her journalism career as an intern at an AI magazine in Bengaluru while pursuing her postgraduate diploma in multimedia journalism at the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media.
