Indian authorities are investigating “all options” after at least eight people were killed Monday night in a rare car blast that tore through a neighborhood in the capital that is popular with tourists.
At least 20 others were injured in the explosion near the historic Red Fort in Delhi, which took place at 6:52 p.m. local time (8:22 a.m. ET) and left the surrounding area laced with charred vehicles.
A “slow-moving vehicle” had stopped at a red light at an intersection when it exploded, Delhi Police Commissioner Satish Golcha told reporters Monday, starting a large fire that spread to nearby cars and rickshaws.
Officials have not said what caused the explosion or identified any suspects.
Delhi Police have registered a case under anti-terrorism laws and are building the “sequence of events,” Deputy Commissioner Raja Banthia told reporters Tuesday morning.
“It is too premature to comment upon anything,” he added.
Footage verified by NBC News showed burned vehicles at the scene of the explosion, where investigators are combing for forensic evidence that could help determine the cause.
Witnesses described seeing body parts strewn around the area.
“It was like an earthquake, the impact and intensity was very powerful,” said Wadqas Shaikh, a 34-year-old pharmacy owner in the nearby Chandni Chowk market.
“We were shocked,” he said.
Home Minister Amit Shah said Monday night that it was too early to say whether the blast was a terrorist attack, telling reporters that investigators are exploring all possibilities.
“We will investigate all angles with determination,” he said.
Shah was expected to chair a meeting with top intelligence officials on Tuesday morning.
Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said Tuesday that the investigation findings “will soon be made public.”
“Those responsible for this tragedy will be brought to justice and will not be spared under any circumstances,” he said.
The blast has rattled nerves in India, which almost went to war with its neighbor and fellow nuclear power, Pakistan, over an April terrorist attack in the disputed region of Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly Indian tourists.
India, which said Pakistan-backed armed militants were responsible, launched airstrikes on Pakistan, which denied involvement in the attack. Dozens of people were killed on both sides of the border in the following days before a ceasefire agreement was reached.
Monday’s blast occurred outside the 17th-century Red Fort, once the seat of Mughal emperors and now a major tourist destination, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivers an address every Aug. 15 to mark India’s Independence Day.
Security has been ramped up at key locations around Delhi, which has a population of nearly 33 million people, including the country’s busiest airport, several monuments, and train stations, India’s federal police unit, the CISF, said in a post on X.
The Red Fort metro station was closed on Tuesday “due to security reasons,” the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation said on X. The fort itself has also been closed until Thursday, the archaeology agency said.
Neighboring states Uttar Pradesh — the country’s most populous and home to the Taj Mahal — and Haryana have also been put on high alert, police there said.
India’s financial hub, Mumbai, in the country’s south, is also on high alert, police said.
The State Department expressed its condolences and advised U.S. citizens to stay away from crowded areas, especially around the Red Fort. The blast occurred hours before President Donald Trump swore in Sergio Gor as the U.S. ambassador to India.
Modi, whose Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party governs Delhi and also faces key elections this week in the northern state of Bihar, shared his condolences Monday in a post on X and said he had “reviewed the situation” with Shah.
The blast occurred hours after police in Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority region, said they had arrested several people linked to prominent terrorist groups and seized over 6,300 pounds of explosive materials in a joint operation involving police in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. It was not clear whether the arrests were related.
While blasts such as the one on Monday are rare, it evoked memories of previous attacks targeting Delhi.
A briefcase bomb killed about 12 people when it went off outside the High Court in 2011, a decade after gunmen stormed the parliament and killed more than a dozen people.