ISLAMABAD: At least twelve people were killed and 27 others injured in a suicide blast outside a court in Islamabad on Tuesday, the interior minister said. 

The explosion took place near the entrance of a district court in Islamabad’s G-11 sector while it was crowded with a large number of litigants.

“As of now, 12 people have been martyred and 27 have been injured,” Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told reporters. 

“We are already treating the injured, our teams are in the hospitals already. We are providing them the best possible facilities.”

A security official who declined to be named said “Indian-sponsored and Afghan Taliban–backed proxy group “Fitna-ul-Khawarij” carried out the suicide bombing, referring to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group that Islamabad says operates from safe havens in Afghanistan, with backing from India. Both nations deny this. 

The latest attack comes a day after militants including a suicide bomber tried to storm a cadet college in Wana, a city in the northwestern South Waziristan district, triggering a gunbattle that killed at least two of the attackers.

On Monday, Pakistani security forces said they had killed 20 Pakistani Taliban insurgents in raids on hideouts in the northwest region bordering Afghanistan as tensions between the two countries escalated. The army said eight militants were killed Sunday in North Waziristan, a former TTP stronghold in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and 12 others were killed in a separate raid in the Dara Adam Khel district, also in the northwest.

Meanwhile, Pakistan and Afghanistan have blamed each other for the collapse of a third round of peace talks in Istanbul over the weekend. 

The negotiations, facilitated by Qatar and Turkiye, began last month following deadly border clashes that killed dozens of soldiers and civilians on both sides.

TP is separate from but allied with the Afghan Taliban and has been emboldened since the Afghan Taliban’s return to power in 2021. Many TTP leaders and fighters are believed to have taken refuge in Afghanistan since then. 

The Islamabad attack also takes place a day after a deadly car blast in India’s capital New Delhi killed at least eight and injured 20 people. An Indian officer said on Tuesday that police are probing the blast under a law used to fight “terrorism.”

Arch-rivals India and Pakistan frequently trade blame for supporting militant groups against each other. A militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in April that killed 22 people, mostly tourists, sparked a four-day confrontation between the nuclear-armed neighbors in May that saw them exchange artillery, drone and air strikes before a ceasefire was brokered by the US.