Bloodshed at Red Fort, Capital rattled: Ambulance drivers recall carnage at ground zero

A few hours after a car explosion near the Red Fort Metro Station, scenes at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) Hospital were grim. Ambulances lined the entry gate as drivers and hospital staff rushed in and out.

Zakir, an ambulance driver, said he crossed the Red Fort gate to retrieve a human leg from one side of the road. “The rest of the body was on the other side,” he said. “Body parts were lying everywhere. We brought them separately.”

Another ambulance driver, Mohd Faizan, said more than seven ambulances were sent to the site along with the fire engines. “I collected hands and legs of the dead separately. It was a horrible scene,” he said.

Eyewitness Dilsad, a resident of Uttar Pradesh, said, “I heard and loud explosion and saw the flames and came down to see nothing but dead bodies everywhere.”

“I feel scared, I don’t want to stay in Delhi, I will get a train and go back home tomorrow,” he said wiping his tears.

According to Delhi Police Commissioner Satish Golcha, the blast took place at 6:52 pm in a Hyundai i20 car that had stopped at a traffic signal outside Gate No. 1 of the Red Fort Metro Station.

The explosion set six cars and three auto-rickshaws on fire and shattered window panes nearby. The Delhi Fire Department received a call at 6:55 pm and sent seven engines and 15 ambulances. The fire was brought under control by 7:29 pm.

By 9:30 pm, eight victims had arrived dead at LNJP Hospital’s casualty ward. Sixteen injured followed later.

“One had a lower limb auto-amputation, one was charred, most others had cuts and shrapnel wounds,” a postgraduate resident doctor in the emergency wing of Lok Nayak hospital said. Dr Manish Kumar Jha, another resident doctor in the emergency wing, said, “Doctors, nurses and support staff were called immediately. All were on standby.”

The wife of one of the injured, Mohd Shehnwaz, waited with her eight-year-old daughter. A nurse told her that he had a minor hand injury. Minutes later, Shehnwaz came out and met them across the railing.