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ISLAMABAD - Police in the Pakistani capital put up checkpoints and mounted extra patrols on Wednesday as the death toll from a suicide attack outside a court in the capital rose to 16, hospital officials said.
More than 60 people were being treated for wounds after the Tuesday evening attack outside a court where the country's suspended chief justice was due to speak.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who has become a symbol of opposition to President Pervez Musharraf's eight-year rule, had not arrived to speak to lawyers at the time of the blast.
"Three people died of their wounds overnight," said an official at the city's main hospital, taking the toll to 16.
Pakistan has seen surge in the violence since government forces stormed Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, compound last week, ending a week-long siege and killing 75 supporters of hardline clerics.
Police set up checkpoints on all main roads into the city and on roads inside the city.
Islamabad police chief Iftikhar Ahmed told reporters late on Tuesday they had information that militant suicide bombers had entered the capital.
"We had information that some suicide bombers had entered Islamabad. We have beefed up security but it is not possible to stop such attacks."
Attacks in the capital are rare compared with the level of violence in the northwest. About 100 people, most of them police and soldiers have been killed in a spate of suicide attacks in the northwest this month.
Musharraf suspended Chief Justice Chaudhry on March 9 after accusing him of misconduct. The suspension sparked protests by lawyers defending the independence of the judiciary and opposition parties seeking an end to army chief Musharraf's rule.
Tuesday's blast went off about 30 metres from a stage, set up in a car park in a market area outside the court, and close to a stall put up by the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
One lawyer with the chief justice said he believed the blast was part of the backlash against the Lal Masjid assault, and was aimed at the PPP because Bhutto had voiced support for the military action against the militants.
But another lawyer close to Chaudhry said he believed the chief justice had been targeted by state intelligence agencies.
"It was a direct attack on the chief justice by the agencies. They wanted to get rid of him," Munir A. Malik, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, and a member of Chaudhry's legal team, told reporters.
Bhutto was certain her party workers had been targeted, and she believed some "hidden hands" were seeking to create a pretext for Musharraf to impose emergency rule.
- REUTERS
