---

The agency detained Bilal Naseer Malla, a resident of Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir, for allegedly harbouring and providing logistical support to Umar Nabi, the alleged bomber

---

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday arrested another man in connection with last month’s car blast near Delhi’s Red Fort metro station, bringing the total number of arrests in the case to eight.

The agency said it had taken into custody Bilal Naseer Malla, a resident of Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir, for allegedly harbouring and providing logistical support to Umar Nabi, the doctor believed to have been driving the vehicle that exploded on Nov. 10, killing 13 people. Malla is also accused of destroying evidence linked to the incident, the NIA said.

Malla was detained by an NIA team in the national capital.

The Union government has described the explosion as a terrorist incident. The NIA has since carried out a series of arrests across several states as it investigates what it says is a wider conspiracy behind the attack.

The first arrest came on November 16, when the agency detained Amir Rashid Ali, in whose name the Hyundai i20 car used in the blast was registered. A day later, investigators arrested another alleged associate of Nabi — Jasir Bilal Wani, also known as Danish — from Srinagar. Wani is from Qazigund in Anantnag district.

On November 20, the NIA picked up four more suspects: Muzammil Shakeel Ganai of Pulwama, Adeel Ahmed Rather of Anantnag, Mufti Irfan Ahmad Wagay of Shopian and Shaheen Saeed of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh.

A seventh man, Soyab, from Dhauj in Haryana’s Faridabad district, was arrested on November 26, also on suspicion of sheltering Nabi and helping with logistics.

The NIA said on Tuesday that it was continuing its probe into the “conspiracy” behind the attack and was working with central and state agencies.

Hours before the blast on November 10, police said they had uncovered an “inter-state and transnational terror module” during operations in Faridabad and Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur, recovering about 2,900 kg of improvised explosive device-making material.

The NIA has been conducting raids in Jammu and Kashmir in connection with both the blast and the alleged terror network.