QUETTA A bomb strapped to a cycle exploded on Sunday, killing two policemen and a shopkeeper and injuring 19 other people on the Quarry road.

Sources said the cycle was parked near a fodder shop and the bomb was detonated by remote control when a police vehicle passed by.

Frontier Corps and police personnel cordoned off the area and took the injured to the civil hospital.

“The police vehicle destroyed by the bomb was in the use of Nazir Kurd, District Police Officer of Khuzdar,” DIG Operations Hamid Shakeel told Dawn, adding that the DPO was not in the vehicle when it was hit by the bomb.

“Their target was the police vehicle,” he said, adding that the third man killed in the blast was a shopkeeper who owned a fodder shop in the area.

He was identified as Niamatullah and the two policemen killed were identified as Ali Hasan, driver of the Khuzdar DPO, and Didar Ali Kurd.

“The bomb also damaged nearby buildings and shops,” police said.

The sources said that police had detained a suspect.

Hospital sources said that 11 of the injured had been admitted to the hospital.

DIG Hamid Shakeel said that police had arrested 18 men in connection with target killings and grenade attacks in different areas of Quetta.

Khuzdar police have also arrested eight suspects and seized arms and ammunition.

In Quetta and other parts of Balochistan, 18 people, including three police personnel, have been victims of target killings and bomb attacks over the past five days.

Seven people, two policemen among them, were injured in Hub when a police checkpoint at Marri Chowk was attacked with a hand grenade.

Sources said the attackers riding a motorcycle hurled the hand grenade at the checkpoint and escaped. The injured were admitted to Jam Ghulam Qadir Hospital in Hub.

Grenade Attack

Armed men on a motorcycle hurled a grenade into a police office in Kalat town on Sunday night, causing panic among people.

Windowpanes of the police office and nearby buildings were smashed in the blast, sources said.