Quetta: A bomb exploded today in a crowded car repair market in restive southwest Pakistan, killing at least five people and wounding 17, officials said.
The blast happened near a main road in Quetta city, the capital of insurgency-hit Baluchistan province.
"Apparently, the bomb was planted in a bicycle parked in the market," Azhar Shah, a senior police official, told AFP.
A hospital official confirmed the deaths.
"We have received five dead bodies and 17 injured people from the blast site," Rasheed Jamali, a doctor at Quetta`s civil hospital, told AFP.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast.
But the oil-and gas-rich province bordering Afghanistan and Iran has been badly hit by a decade-long Baluch separatist insurgency as well as sectarian violence.
