New Delhi, 8th March, 2010: At least 11 people have been killed and 45 others were injured in a suicide bomb attack in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore. An explosives-laden car had rammed into a building of a federal investigative agency, the police added.
A senior police official Mohammed Irfan told the AFP news agency that the blast had taken place near Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) building in the Model Town area in Lahore. Close to the country's border with India; Lahore has been hit several times by militants over the past year.
TV reports said some of the neighbouring buildings had also been damaged in the explosion.
"It was a suicide attack. We have heard that 40 to 50 people were in the [investigation agency] building when the incident happened. Rescue work is in progress," Lahore police official Pervaiz Rathore told reporters.
The FIA offices in Lahore were the target of two suicide attacks in the past years, says the BBC's Ilyas Khan in Islamabad. More than 26 people died in the attacks. There have been a number of explosions in Lahore over the past year. Last December, two bomb blasts at a busy market killed at least 48 people and injured over 100 people
In May 2009, a bomb attack on a police building killed at least 23 people and injured 200. The nearby offices of the ISI intelligence service were also damaged in the blast.
