On November 10, at 6:55 p.m., a phone rang at the Delhi Fire Services. The panicked caller told an officer that a blast had occurred in a car in front of the Red Fort. Within minutes, the roads near the high security area were chock-a-block with fire tenders, ambulances, and police vans, recalls the officer, who did not want to be named.

The scene, he remembers, was ghastly. There were shattered glass pieces, dismembered body parts, streaks of blood, and broken vehicle parts on Netaji Subhash Marg, the road leading to the Mughal-era sandstone structure.

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Dharmender, a resident of Greater Noida, an Uttar Pradesh suburb of Delhi, who had gone to shop in the Chandni Chowk area, recalls what happened. “The traffic was moving really slowly. Suddenly, the sky lit up and there was a loud noise. Those around the car did not even get a chance to attempt an escape. After the blast, we dragged out some seven cab drivers from the area and placed them in e-rickshaws. All I noticed was that the vehicle which had blown up had a Haryana number plate.”

Bhupender Singh, a 55-year-old resident of Noida, who happened to be at the site, says he fled as ambulances carried injured people from the blast site to Lok Nayak Hospital, about 2 kilometres away. His hands still shaking, Singh says he was metres away from the white four-wheeler that blew up. “The traffic light had just turned green when the blast occurred. I rolled out of my vehicle and ran towards the market area on the opposite side,” he says.

Sonu, a guard working at a public toilet in the area, recalls how he watched the scene with horror. He remains scarred at the sight of a limb falling near a Jain temple and a disembodied head landing on the roadside.

The blast took place less than 500 metres away from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made his Independence Day speech in August. He had declared that a “new normal” had been established after India’s Operation Sindoor against Pakistan, in response to the terror attack in Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in April. At the blast in front of Red Fort, officially recognised as a “terror incident” on November 12, at least 13 people died and more than 20 people were injured.

A day late