Modi Talks of ‘Conspiracy’ Behind Delhi Car Explosion as Toll Climbs to 12; Bihar Registers 66.9% Turnout as Polls Close; Trump Says US Close to Deal With India and Hints That Tariffs May Come Down

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Snapshot of the day

November 11, 2025

Sidharth Bhatia

Indian agencies will ‘get to the bottom of the conspiracy’ behind the lethal car explosion near the Red Fort in Delhi yesterday and “the perpetrators behind it will not be spared”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said while in Thimphu for former Bhutanese King Jigme Singye Wangchuk’s 70th birthday celebration. Union home minister Amit Shah too said that he had instructed officials to “hunt down each and every culprit behind this incident” so that they could “face the full wrath of our agencies”. However the cause of the blast has not yet been publicly revealed and while there has been no official announcement over whether it is linked to the spate of arrests in Jammu and Kashmir yesterday over a ‘terror module’, a number of media reports have cited unnamed officials as connecting the two developments. Meanwhile, The Tribune reports that no splinters, no crater and no trace of RDX were found at the site.

The death toll from the car blast, per PTI, has risen from eight to 12, and Vijaita Singh reports that the case was transferred to the anti-terror National Investigation Agency on Tuesday. Before that the Delhi police had invoked provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the Explosives Act and the BNS in the case. Some news reports have identified the man who was driving the Hyundai i20 that went up in flames as one Dr Umar.

Meanwhile in Jammu and Kashmir, the police said they busted the terror module during their investigations into posters, allegedly issued by the Jaish-e-Mohammed, put up in parts of Srinagar which “threatened and intimidated police and security forces”. Jehangir Ali reports that the police have arrested two doctors, Adeel Ahmed Rather and Muzammil Ahmad Ganaie, for their alleged connection to the module. According to the Jammu and Kashmir police this outfit is linked to the JeM and the Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hiand and was part of a “white collar terror ecosystem”. It said, although without specifying what sort of ‘academic networks’ it had in mind, that

“Funds were raised through professional and academic networks, under the guise of social/charitable causes. The accused were found involved in identifying persons, to radicalise, initiate and recruit them to terrorist ranks, besides raising funds, arranging logistics, procurement of arms/ammunition and material for preparing IEDs [improvised explosive devices].”

“It’s the first time in my life that I have seen death this up and close. I will never be able to forget it,” says Akash Kashyap, a 27-year-old insurance sector employee who was witness to the blast and the gory scenes it left behind in its wake. Speaking to Scroll‘s Ayush Tiwari he recounted the emotions he felt and grappled with in the seconds, minutes and hours after the tragedy.

At least 12 people were killed and 27 others were injured by a suicide bomb attack outside a district court in Islamabad today. The blast, reports the Associated Press, “was heard for miles away and came at a busy time of day when the area outside the court is typically crowded with hundreds of visitors attending court hearings”. A splinter faction of the Pakistani Taliban named the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has claimed responsibility for the attack, which is the latest to take place in Pakistan as part of a spurt in violence. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has blamed India for the attack.

At the other end of the Pakistani capital, the upper house of the national assembly yesterday evening passed a controversial constitution amendment which