A horrific car explosion shook Pakistan’s Islamabad, on Tuesday afternoon (November 11) killing 12 people so far and leaving several injured. The explosion took place at judicial complex in Islamabad killing 12 and injuring 27 people. Several Pakistani media outlets claim that it was a suicide attack. The police are not ruling out sabotage either.

Security across the capital has been heightened following the incident. Pakistan has struggled with militant attacks across the country and a resurgent Pakistani Taliban. However, no group has claimed responsibility for the blast yet.

This comes barely a day after a blast near Delhi’s Red Fort which killed 13 people and left several injured.

How the explosion took place in Islamabad?

According to Pakistani media reports, a car parked in the parking area of ​​a court premises in Islamabad suddenly exploded at around 12:30 pm on Tuesday. The entire area shook due to the explosion. Several cars parked nearby were also damaged. It is learned that there was a large crowd of people there at the time of the incident. Many lawyers were among them. There was panic immediately after the explosion. The intensity of the explosion was so high that it was heard from six kilometres away. But the reason for the explosion is still unclear. An investigation has already begun.

Initially, it was learned that a gas cylinder was kept in the car which exploded. However, investigators are not ruling out sabotage. Police, firefighters and rescuers rushed to the scene after the explosion. The injured have been rescued and admitted to a nearby hospital. The entire area has already been cordoned off.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told reporters the suicide bombing attack happened at 12.39 pm local time. The bomber tried to enter the court building on foot, but detonated the device outside, close to a police vehicle, after waiting there for 10 to 15 minutes, Naqvi told reporters.

The blast in Islamabad comes just hours after Pakistani security forces foiled an attempt by armed men to take cadets hostage at an army-run college overnight. The overnight attack on the army-run college began on Monday evening, when a bomber tried to storm the cadet college in Wana, a city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border.

Tension between Pakistan and Afghanistan

Pakistan has faced a surge in Islamist violence since the Afghan Taliban swept Kabul in 2021. Islamabad has long accused Kabul of harboring the Pakistani Taliban militant group (known as the TTP), which its Afghan namesake denies. Clashes between the Pakistani and Afghan militaries in October saw the worst violence between the two countries in years.

Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif stated on X that Pakistan is in a “state of war” and that this attack should be taken as a “wake-up call” with regards to negotiations with neighbouring country Afghanistan.

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