NEW DELHI (AFP) – A powerful bomb hidden in a briefcase ripped through a crowd outside New Delhi’s High Court on Wednesday, killing 10 people and injuring 62, many of them petitioners waiting for their cases to be heard.

Police said the device had apparently been placed near an entrance gate reception area where more than 100 people were queueing for passes to the court complex, located in the heart of the Indian capital.

The court buildings were evacuated as police blocked off the area and emergency services rushed the injured, some of them in a critical condition, to hospital.

“Ten people have been confirmed dead,” said Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat, who put the number of injured at 62.

The explosion occurred around 10:15 am (0445 GMT). There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Grisly mobile phone footage from the immediate aftermath of the blast was broadcast by television news channels, showing screaming victims on the ground surrounded by scattered files and bloody limbs.

Condemning the attack, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said India would not be cowed by terrorism.

“This is a cowardly act of a terrorist nature,” Singh, who is currently on a visit to Bangladesh, told television reporters in Dhaka.

“This is a long war in which all political parties, all the the people of India, have to stand united so that this scourge of terrorism is crushed.”

Home Minister P. Chidamabaram, in a statement to parliament, called on people to remain “resolute and united” in the face of efforts to destabilise the country.

One police source said initial investigations suggested the bomb had contained potassium nitrate.

“More than 100 people were in a queue at the reception,” Rahul Gupta, a petitioner whose case was listed for a hearing Wednesday, told AFP.

“Then there was a huge explosion. I saw a lot of people lying around in a pool of blood.”

It was the first major attack on Indian soil since triple blasts in Mumbai on July 13 killed 26 people. It has still not been established who carried out those attacks.

The last bombings in the Indian capital were in September 2008 when a series of blasts in several upmarket shopping areas killed 22 people and injured nearly 100.

A home-grown militant outfit called the Indian Mujahideen claimed responsibility for that attack.

The High Court has been targeted before. In May this year a low-intensity device was set off in the parking lot, but there were no casualties and only minimal damage.

Rajesh Gupta, a 45-year-old businessman, was among those queueing for a court pass when Wednesday’s bomb went off.

“My hand was injured. My colleague suffered a serious injury in his leg — he has been taken to hospital,” Gupta said.

“The area was very crowded, there must have been some 200 people there.

“The scene here is total chaos. People are really frantic and worried about their friends and loved ones,” he added.

One lawyer inside the court told AFP how he was working in his office when the bomb detonated.

“I was in my chambers when I heard a huge explosion and the windows in my room were blown in,” M.I. Chowdhary said.

“People were carrying the injured away. Some of them looked horribly hurt.

“That time is peak hour for petitioners and other people getting their entry passes at the reception area. So it seems somebody had timed it to cause maximum casualties.

“Security is really not up to the mark,” Chowdhary said. “It needs to be tightened around such a sensitive target.”

India has made efforts to improve domestic security since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, in which 10 Islamist gunmen laid siege to the city, killing 166 people.

But experts say the country remains a soft target because it has failed to enforce a shift in counter-terror policy that prioritises intelligence-gathering.

Other recent bombings include a blast in February last year at a packed restaurant in the western city of Pune, which killed 16 people including several foreigners.