A district police officer in Mardan told Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper that the attacker first hurled a hand grenade outside the court premises before detonating his suicide vest. Lawyers, policemen and passers-by were among the dead and some of the wounded were said to be in a critical condition.
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Earlier on Friday, there was indiscriminate firing in a Christian colony in Peshawar.
Last month a similar suicide attack outside a hospital in Quetta city killed about a ton people and majority were lawyers. Three security officials and two civilian guards were wounded.
Both attacks took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and were claimed by Taliban faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar.
He said the attackers killed one Christian in the neighbourhood.
Asim Bajwa, an army spokesman, said “all four suicide bombers were killed” in the operation carried out against the fighters on Friday and that a clearance operation was under way. The swift response from security teams was credited with preventing more deaths. “We will not spare them, they will be wiped out from every corner of the country”, Sharif said. A second policeman opened fire at the attacker, who detonated his explosives.
In an emailed statement, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claimed responsibility for the twin bombings, which targeted Christians and lawyers.
The police officer said the running suicide bomber was shot by police as a result his explosive belt around his waist exploded.
Christians are a tiny minority in majority Muslim Pakistan.
The group’s spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, promised more attacks in a statement sent to Reuters. In this suicide bomb attack 127 people were killed and over 250 injured.
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The military arrested 309 suspects, including IS members from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
