Three injured in Lahore blast

LAHORE, June 30: A bomb exploded outside a vegetable market on the western side of the Punjab provincial capital of Lahore today, injuring t...

LAHORE, June 30: A bomb exploded outside a vegetable market on the western side of the Punjab provincial capital of Lahore today, injuring three people, police officials said.

Two unidentified men left a bag at the entrance to the vegetable market, asking the owner to keep an eye on it while they shopped nearby, sources said. Within minutes, the bomb hidden inside the bag exploded, police chief Ahmed Raza said. The owner of the vegetable market, Mohammed Ramazan, lost his right arm in the explosion and two customers were hurt, he said. In recent weeks, several bombs have rattled Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province,

which borders India. The government here has repeatedly accused Indian agents of planting the explosive devices in an attempt to destabilise Pakistan.

Meanwhile, in Karachi, gunmen shot dead three people including two activists of an Islamic fundamentalist party on Monday, raising the death toll in the day-long violence to 14, police and residents said. Police said the assailants, riding in acar, opened fire on activists of the youth wing of the Jamat-I-Islami (JI) when they were returning from their party office in the city’s eastern district of Gulshan Iqbal.

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Two JI workers died and another was critically wounded. The body of the third victim in the drive by shooting could not be immediately identified.

The attack on the activists of the country’s most organised party was the first in the ongoing violence that has claimed more than 140 lives since last month.