SRINAGAR, India, Nov 13, (AP): India’s Cabinet on Wednesday called this week’s deadly car explosion in the capital a terror attack carried out by "anti-national forces,” though it did not release any new evidence linked to the blast. Earlier Wednesday, authorities said several suspects had been arrested in the disputed Kashmir region as part of the investigation into the blast Monday near the historic Red Fort monument that killed eight people and injured several others.

Authorities on Tuesday announced that they were investigating it as possible terrorism - a step that gives investigating authorities broader powers to arrest or detain people. But they have not publicly detailed their evidence. The federal Cabinet of ministers, in a resolution passed late Wednesday, called the car explosion "a heinous terror incident, perpetrated by anti-national forces.”

It provided no further details. Red Fort, a major tourist attraction, is a 17th-century monument and the place where Indian prime ministers deliver Independence Day speeches on Aug. 15 each year. If confirmed as a deliberate attack, it would be the deadliest such blast in India’s capital since 2011. At least five people were detained for questioning in a series of raids overnight in the Kashmir's southern Pulwama district, police officials said Wednesday.

Monday’s blast came hours after police in Indian-controlled Kashmir said they had dismantled a suspected militant cell operating from the disputed region to the outskirts of New Delhi. At least seven people, including two doctors, were arrested, and police seized weapons and a large quantity of bomb-making material in Faridabad, a city in Haryana state, which is near New Delhi.

Indian news outlets report the explosion could be linked to the same cell. Police have not commented, citing their ongoing investigation. Four police officers in Kashmir familiar with the case said the investigation that led them to the cell began with a routine probe into anti-India posters that appeared in a neighborhood in the Kashmir city of Srinagar on Oct. 19.

The posters threatened attacks on Indian troops stationed in Kashmir. The officers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said CCTV footage helped identify suspects, initially leading to the arrest of at least three people. Over the following three weeks, interrogations led to the detention of two Kashmiri doctors working in two Indian cities, as well as two other suspects from Kashmir, the officers said.