Bomb Blast Kills At Least 10 People in Delhi's High Court

A powerful bomb that was placed near the reception area of the High Court of the Indian capital of Delhi killed at least 10 people and injured dozens more. Delhi police said the bomb, which went off at around 10:15 am local time, was hidden in a suitcase and went off as around 100 people, many of them petitioners, were queuing to receive passes to enter the court building through the first security checkpoint. Following the blast, security forces immediately evacuated the building and, at the time of writing, the court complex remained cordoned off. Security precautions were also increased in other strategic locations in the capital, while the Supreme Court and the Rajya Sabha (upper house of parliament) temporarily suspended their operations. In an address to the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh slammed the attack as "a cowardly act of a terrorist nature", stressing that "this is a long war in which all political parties, all the people of India, have to stand united so that this scourge of terrorism is crushed". Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said: "We are determined to track down the perpetrators of this horrific crime and bring them to justice."

The government said that it is currently examining an emailed claim of responsibility from Harakat-ul-Jihad-ul-Islami (HUJI), a militant network active in South Asia, saying that it is taking the claim seriously. In its email, which was also relayed to the media, the group wrote that "we own the responsibility for today's blasts at Delhi high court", adding that "our demand is that Mohammed Afzal Guru's death sentence should be repealed immediately else we would target major high courts and the Supreme Court of India". Afzal Guru was sentenced to death by the country's Supreme Court in 2004 for his involvement in an attack on India's parliament in 2001, which the government has blamed on the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) militant groups, and which at the time led to a significant increase of tensions between India and Pakistan. The HUJI's claim of responsibility, as well as its demand, is surprising as it is not known whether, and if so in what capacity, Afzal Guru has or has had connections with the group.

An investigation into the matter is currently under way, with the government saying that the National Investigative Agency (NIA) and the National Security Guard (NSG) are on the case. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that police suggested that initial investigations revealed that the bomb contained potassium nitrate, otherwise known as saltpetre, one of the three chemical components of gunpowder.

Outlook and Implications

This latest attack highlights the high risk of terrorist attacks in India. The fact that it comes less than two months after triple blasts targeted the country's financial capital of Mumbai on 13 July, which killed 26 people, indicates that, after a lull since 2008, militant activity is again increasing. In 2007 and 2008 the Indian Mujahideen—which Indian authorities claim is an amalgam of the group that has claimed responsibility for today's attack, HUJI, the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), and the Students Islamic Movement of India—has claimed responsibility for a number of high-profile attacks. This included attacks in: Hyderabad in August 2007; Uttar Pradesh court complex in November 2007; Jaipur in May 2008; Gujarat in August 2008; and a shopping complex in Delhi in September 2008. After this, a number of successful police operations significantly reduced the group's capabilities, and the group has kept a low profile since then. A group that called itself the Indian Mujahedeen claimed responsibility for the shooting of two Taiwanese tourists outside the Jama Masjid in Delhi on 19 September 2010; a bomb at the scene failed to explode. Following this, the Indian Mujahideen also claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in Varanasi on 7 December 2010, which led to the death of two people. However, the amateur nature of these attacks suggested that either the group's capabilities have been significantly weakened, or, more likely, that a small militant cell simply appropriated the Indian Mujahideen label in order to increase publicity of its attack.

Target Chosen

The High Court in Delhi had been the target of an attack earlier this year, with a low-intensity device exploding in the court's car park on 25 May, although damage was minimal and no casualties reported. There was no claim of responsibility at the time. Today's court list, seen by Jane's, did not provide clues regarding the motive of the attack—the case of Afzal Guru is not pending before the High Court. Having exhausted all judicial processes to avert a death sentence, his case will be decided by India's president, Pratibha Patil, with a plea pending before her. High Courts in India are subordinate only to the Supreme Court and mainly deal with appeals from lower courts, as well as writ petitions, although in certain cases it can exercise its original civil and criminal jurisdiction. Targeting the high court therefore makes sense only as a symbolic one, with the attack more generally targeted against India's judiciary, as well as the government. The Delhi High Court is located near the India Gate in central Delhi, from which a road leads directly to the country's parliament as well as the prime minister's office. Among other reasons, the High Court could have been chosen as a more feasible target as fewer security precautions are in place compared with the more high-profile government buildings.

Relations with Pakistan

The Indian government's restraint in the case of July's Mumbai attacks with regard to assigning blame to Pakistan-based militant groups is likely to apply to this latest attack as well. Unless evidence is provided that undoubtedly implicates Pakistan in this latest terrorist incident, the attack is unlikely to derail the new-found momentum between the two nuclear-armed countries to continue the newly resumed peace talks.