'Stay 10 km away from India-Pak border': UK issues travel alert amid Red Fort blast probe

The UK government has issued a sharp travel advisory urging its citizens to avoid all travel within 10 kilometers of the India-Pakistan border and the entire Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, excluding air travel to Jammu and movement within the city itself.

The advisory explicitly restricts travel to Pahalgam, Gulmarg, Sonamarg, Srinagar, and the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, citing serious security concerns in the region.

It comes as Indian investigators probe whether ammonium nitrate and a detonator triggered a deadly car explosion near Delhi’s Red Fort that killed nine. Police recovered 40 exhibits from the blast site, including vehicle parts and soil samples. 

Forensic teams suspect the vehicle carried up to 70 kg of ammonium nitrate, a white crystalline chemical often used in improvised explosives, likely ignited by a timer or detonator.

The UK’s warning reflects mounting international concern over rising instability in South Asia.

In Pakistan, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif blamed India for two deadly attacks: a suicide bombing outside Islamabad’s District Judicial Complex that killed 12, and a separate assault on a cadet college in Wana, near the Afghan border. 

“These attacks are a continuation of India's state-sponsored terrorism aimed at destabilising Pakistan,” Sharif said, according to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs dismissed the allegations as “baseless and unfounded,” calling them a “predictable tactic” to deflect from Pakistan’s internal crisis.

Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif escalated the rhetoric, declaring the country “in a state of war.” He blamed Kabul’s Taliban regime for harboring militants and warned the conflict now extends well beyond the Afghan-Pakistan border.