New Deli, India – Indian police were investigating reports of a blast near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday that did not cause any casualties.
Officers cordoned off the embassy as they combed through the surrounding areas following the report of the late afternoon blast.
Israel’s foreign ministry in a statement reported “an explosion” near the embassy.
“This evening… an explosion occurred in close proximity to the embassy,” Ohad Nakash Kaynar, Israel’s deputy head of mission in New Delhi said in a statement.
“All our workers are safe, all our diplomats are safe. Our security teams are working in full cooperation with the local Delhi security, and they will investigate the matter further.”
Teju Chitri, a security guard working at a nearby government languages training institute, told the Press Trust of India news agency that he heard the explosion, which took place in a tightly controlled neighbourhood home to government buildings and diplomatic missions.
“I heard a blast… I came outside and saw smoke coming out from near a tree,” Chitri said.
Deploying warships
India’s navy said it is deploying three warships and reconnaissance aircraft in the Arabian Sea to “maintain a deterrent presence” after a string of recent shipping attacks.
Three guided-missile destroyers as well as P8I long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft were being deployed following “the recent spate of attacks in the Arabian Sea”, it said in a statement late Monday.
Washington accused Tehran of carrying out a drone attack on Saturday on the MV Chem Pluto tanker 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) off the coast of India, claims Iran’s foreign ministry dubbed “worthless”.
It was the first time Washington has openly accused Iran of directly targeting ships since the start of Israel’s war on the Palestinian group Hamas, which is backed by Tehran.
The Liberian-flagged and Japanese-owned MV Chem Pluto was moored off India’s port of Mumbai on Monday.
“Analysis of the area of attack and debris found on the ship points towards a drone attack,” India’s navy said, adding “further forensic and technical analysis will be required”.
Elsewhere, in the Red Sea, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have carried out a string of drone and missile attacks in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel is battling Hamas members.
Yemeni rebel attacks have prompted major firms to reroute their cargo vessels around the southern tip of Africa, a much longer voyage with higher fuel costs.
New Delhi is also boosting its anti-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden after Somali pirates this month hijacked the bulk carrier MV Ruen.
India’s navy said it had shadowed the Bulgaria-owned and Malta-flagged vessel after it was seized by Somali pirates 380 nautical miles east of the Yemeni island of Socotra on December 16.
The Somali pirates, who released one injured sailor into the care of the Indian navy, took the MV Ruen and its remaining 17 crew members to Somalia’s semi-autonomous state of Puntland, where it is now moored off the city of Bosaso, the navy said.
India had also sent a guided-missile destroyer to the region as part of “augmenting the anti-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden”, the navy added.
Pirate attacks off the Somali coast peaked in 2011 — with the gunmen launching attacks as far as 3,655 kilometers (2,271 miles) from the Somali coast in the Indian Ocean — before falling off sharply in recent years.