Lajpat Rai Market reopened on Saturday, but the familiar noise of Delhi’s oldest electronics hub has been replaced by caution. The blast near the Red Fort earlier this week, an attack that killed 13, has left the market shaken at its core.

For four days, shutters stayed down. Police checkpoints turned the usually crowded lanes into silence. When the gates finally lifted, traders stepped back into a space that looked the same but felt entirely different.

Rakesh Kumar, an electronics shop owner, was close enough to witness the chaos unfold.

"I came here only two years ago, and that evening I was standing outside when three blasts happened. The first one sounded like a normal CNG cylinder burst, the kind we hear sometimes. But the second was so loud that it felt like the ground had split," he said.

"It looked like the sun had suddenly risen outside. It must have been around 6.50 pm. At that moment, nearly a thousand people were inside the market," he said.

"Somebody said a vehicle had caught fire, so people didn't panic instantly. But then the police quickly blocked the route and asked everyone to move. If they had not managed the crowd, there could have been a stampede with so many people around," he said.

Kumar recalls the ambulance arriving within minutes. "Police were already present in small numbers, but they handled the situation well," he added.

Now, with business back on, the fear hasn’t lifted. Traders say the impact on footfall is immediate and severe.

"It will take time for things to become normal," said Rajinder Singh, who runs a lighting shop. He says customers from outside Delhi have stopped calling, and even regular buyers are wary.

The wedding season, typically a lifeline for wholesalers, has taken a direct hit. Orders are being cancelled or postponed.

"People are scared. Some clients shifted their functions to January or February. There is business loss, but more than that, there is nervousness among traders," Singh said.

Traders say they will wait for security agencies to finish their probe before expecting any return to normal movement around the Red Fort. "We just want things to calm down. The market is open today, but the fear will take time to go away," Kumar said.