QUETTA, Aug 5: Two children, a man and a woman were killed and 12 others injured in a car bomb blast in the Faizabad Sariab area on Sunday.

“The blast occurred in a Suzuki car which was parked inside a house and destroyed the double-storey building. Four people were killed and 12 others injured,” said DIG Operations Wazir Khan Nasar.

He said the explosive-laden car was to be used on some other target in the city but the bomb apparently exploded prematurely. The DIG said the target was not clear.

Officials said the blast turned the car into pieces and the scene of the explosion was strewn with human flesh.

“It appears that the explosive material went off when it was being placed in the car,” police officer Amanullah Khan said, adding that efforts were under way to ascertain which group had planned the blast.

Police said a family from Noskhi district had rented the house of Dr Azam Mengal, a social worker, and most of the family members were in the house when the blast occurred.

Local people told the police that the head of the family was a rickshaw driver.

The front portion and boundary walls of the house were destroyed and windowpanes of nearby houses were shattered. Several nearby buildings were also damaged.

Law-enforcement agencies personnel took the dead and the wounded to different hospitals. Later, some of the injured had to be shifted to the Combined Military Hospital because of a strike by doctors in Sademan Civil Hospital and Bolan Medical College Hospital in protest against the kidnapping of Dr Ghulam Rasool of BMC.

The Sariab police have registered a case and started investigation.

According to AFP, a suspected militant killed himself and two children when a bomb in the car he was driving exploded before he reached his intended target.

“We have recovered the bodies of a woman and two children from the debris and also found a severed head, believed to be of a militant who was killed in the blast,” police officer Mukhtar Ahmed said. The injured included seven children, some of them related to the dead, he said.

“We have launched an investigation to identify the militant. Police were also interrogating the owner of the house,” Abdul Razzaq, in charge of the bomb-disposal squad, said the car was carrying between 80 and 100kg of explosives.