Indian police detain 3 from cyber cafe over Delhi High Court bombing

Indian police detained three people, including the owner of an Internet cafe, over an email allegedly claiming responsibility for a bombing that killed 12 people at the New Delhi High Court.

The three were arrested in Kishtwar, in the long-disputed Indian administered state of Jammu and Kashmir, that forms a border with Pakistan, the Times of India reported.

A terrorist group based in Pakistan and in Bangladesh, Harkat ul Jihad Islami (HuJI), took responsibility for the attack in the email, sent to the national Investigation Agency (NIA). The email reportedly "warned that attacks on Indian courts would continue unless the death sentence against a former Kashmiri insurgent involved in an attack on India's parliament in 2001 was repealed."

Up to 75 people were wounded when the bomb detonated outside the New Delhi high court building around 10:15 a.m. local time Wednesday, Fox reports. The bomb "dug a deep crater near the main reception counter where more than 100 people were queuing to enter the building in the Indian capital."

"The bomb was apparently placed in a briefcase next to the reception at one of the main gates of the court," Special Police Commissioner Dharmendra Kumar said, Fox reports.

The owner of the Global Cyber Cafe in Kishtwar was taken in for questioning Wednesday along with his brother and an employee, Reuters reports. 

The country's National Investigation Agency has offered a reward of about $25,000 for any information about the Delhi High Court blast culprits, the Times of India reports.

"This is a cowardly act," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reportedly said from Bangladesh, where he is on an official visit. "We will deal with it. We will never succumb to the pressure of terrorism."

The Indian government has come under fire for a perceived security lapse so close to the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

(Delhi bomb: Experts see failure to adapt in terrorist strike)

The Delhi High Court blast was the 19th terror attack carried out in the capital in the past 15 years, according to the Gulf News. 

Meanwhile, the bombing could further strain India-Pakistan ties, Reuters reports:

New Delhi and Islamabad are just rebuilding ties after peace talks were broken off following the attacks on Mumbai in 2008 when Pakistani militants rampaged through the city, leaving 166 dead. Any possible links between Wednesday's blast and Pakistan could burden the fragile process.