QUETTA, Oct 6: Six persons, including an army officer, were injured in a bomb explosion in the cantonment area here on Wednesday night. "It was a cycle bomb," DIG Quetta Pervez Rafi Bhatti told Dawn , adding that the device had been planted in a mountain bike with Russian-made timer.

According to sources, some people had parked a bicycle near the wall of a canteen' at the main Zarghoon Road. When the bicycle exploded, its pieces spread in a 500 yards area, injuring six persons present near the canteen. All the injured were rushed to the civil hospital.

The son of the canteen owner Hasan Munawar received serious injuries, hospital sources said, adding that five injured were admitted to the hospital while the army officer was rushed to CMH, Quetta.

The wall of the canteen and a cycle repair shop was damaged while windowpanes of nearby houses and other building were broken due to the powerful explosion.

Soon after the explosion, senior police officials rushed to the site, along with heavy contingent of police and bomb disposal squad and started investigation.

The six injured were identified as Ashiq Hussain, Aqeel Ahmed, Manzoor Hussain and his son Hasan Munawar, Sajid Zaman and Mohammad Bakhsh.