A suicide bomber struck outside the gates of a district court in Islamabad on Tuesday, detonating his explosives next to a police car and killing 12 people, Pakistan’s interior minister said, the latest in an uptick in violence across the country.
Witnesses described scenes of mayhem in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, which also wounded 27 people. The blast was heard for miles away and came at a busy time of day when the area outside the court is typically crowded with hundreds of visitors attending court hearings.
A breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar group, later claimed responsibility for the attack. The group has staged smaller attacks in the past years but its ability to hit the Pakistani capital is likely to further compound the struggles of the Pakistani government as it faces a resurgent Pakistani Taliban, border tensions and a fragile ceasefire with neighbouring
Afghanistan.
The attacker tried to “enter the court premises but, failing to do so, targeted a police vehicle”, interior minister Mohsin Naqvi told journalists. Earlier reports by Pakistani state-run media and two security officials said a car bomb had caused the explosion.
Naqvi alleged that the attack was “carried out by Indian-backed elements and Afghan Taliban proxies” linked to the Pakistani Taliban. Still, he said authorities are “looking into all aspects” of the explosion.
Police quickly cordoned off the area around the court as a cloud of smoke rose into the sky following the blast. The casualties were mostly passersby or those who had arrived for court appointments, according to Islamabad police.
More than a dozen badly wounded screamed for help as ambulances rushed to the scene. “People started running in all directions,” Mohammad Afzal, who was at the court at the time, told The Associated Press. Naqvi said the discovery nearby of a severed head, which the police said belonged to the attacker, confirmed the blast was a suicide attack. The attacker was also later spotted in CCTV footage from the site, he said.
Pakistani security forces said they foiled an attempt by militants to take cadets hostage at an army-run college overnight, when a suicide car bomber and five other attackers targeted the facility in Wana, a city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border.
The authorities blamed the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP — a separate militant group but allied with the Afghan Taliban. The TTP denied involvement in Monday’s attack and on Tuesday, its spokesperson Mohammad Khurasani also denied involvement in Tuesday’s attack.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif denounced both the attack in Islamabad and in Wana, and called for a full investigation, according to a statement issued in Islamabad. Sharif accused groups “active with Indian support” of being involved in the attack.
‘Baseless & unfounded’
India on Tuesday night “unequivocally” rejected Sharif’s allegation that Indian proxies were involved in the suicide bomb attack outside a local court in Islamabad earlier in the day.
Responding to queries from the media on the Pakistani leadership’s remarks, external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said: “India unequivocally rejects the baseless and unfounded allegations being made by an obviously delirious Pakistani leadership. It is a predictable tactic by Pakistan to concoct false narratives against India in order to deflect the attention of its own public from the ongoing military-inspired constitutional subversion and power-grab unfolding within the country.”
He pointed out that the international community is well aware of the reality and will not be misled by Pakistan’s “desperate diversionary ploys”.
Before Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claimed responsibility, Sharif alleged that extremist groups “actively backed by India” were involved. The BBC quoted him as saying “terrorist attacks on unarmed citizens of Pakistan by India’s terrorist proxies are condemnable”.