"Not Slept Since Blast": Shopkeeper Says Red Fort Attack "Hard To Forget"

Cosmetics seller Rajeev Kumar has not slept a wink since the Monday Red Fort blast, for gory scenes don't let him.

Well before ambulances rushed to the blast site, it was the locals who scampered to save the wounded.

Kumar, who has a shop near Red Fort, was one of the several who first responded to the explosion.

"I thought it was a cylinder blast. But when I saw people lying on the road, bleeding, I rushed to help an injured man. He was writhing in pain," he said.

On Wednesday, Kumar visited the LNJP Hospital to check on the man he had helped into the ambulance.

"I couldn't sleep for the last two nights. I just wanted to know if that man survived. When something like this happens in front of you, it doesn't leave your mind easily," he said.

Fizaan, an ambulance driver who ferried several wounded to the hospital in central Delhi, said he could feel the life still in severed body parts.

"I carried body parts in my hands. They were shaking," he said.

Standing beside his vehicle outside LNJP Hospital, Fizaan recalled the moments right after the blast.

"There was a loud sound. We did not know what had happened. Sometimes tyres burst and it sounds the same. But when our beat officer told us that there had been an explosion, we rushed straight to Red Fort," he said.

Imran, Fizaan's colleague who was with him in the same ambulance, said the two of them worked side by side through the chaos.

"We didn't think much at that time. We just started lifting people. Some were not moving at all, some were crying in pain," he said.

"The smell of smoke and burnt metal was everywhere. Some bodies were severely mutilated," he said.

The high-intensity blast ripped through a car at a traffic signal near Gate No. 1 of the Red Fort Metro station on Monday, killing at least 12 people and injuring over 20 others.  

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)