DHAKA: A suicide bomber killed at least 20 people, many of them police, in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Monday (July 24), officials said, shattering a period of relative calm in Pakistan's second-largest city.

The blast wrought carnage near the Lahore Technology Park in the centre of the city, targeting police officials who were deployed to clear street vendors from the area, reports the NDTV quoting a police official.

Bomb blasts by militants are common in Pakistan, especially in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, but attacks in Lahore have become less frequent in recent years.

Haider Ashraf, deputy inspector general of Punjab police, said the blast was a suicide attack and “police were the target”.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but in the past such blasts have often been carried out by Pakistani Taleban militants.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the majority of those killed and wounded were police and warned the death toll could rise.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the blast in a statement and “directed for extending best possible medical treatment for the injured”.

In early April, a suicide attack on an army census team killed at least six people and wounded 18 in Lahore.

BDST: 1916 HRS, JULY 24, 2017
AP