QUETTA, Oct 28: Three people were killed and 18 others injured when a bomb exploded in a bus in the cantonment area here on Sunday, police said.

“ Two people died on the spot and one man succumbed to his injuries in hospital,” police sources said, adding that the injured were taken to CMH.

They said the explosion occurred when the bus( No QA/ 3495), bound for Hanna Urak, about 12 km from Quetta, was passing through the cantonment’s Shabbir Sharif Market at about 5.15pm.

The Balochistan Inspector-General of Police, Dr Shoaib Suddle, told Dawn that two armymen—Naik Mohammad Nawaz and Lance Naik Zulfiqar Ali—and a civilian, Salahuddin Kakar, a resident of Hanna valley, had died in the bus blast. He said the “ bomb was hidden in a radio set.”

He said the police were trying to find out whether the explosion was linked to the prevailing Afghan situation.

The IGP added that the injured included some military personnel, five children and a woman.

Police said they had detained the bus driver, Saleh Mohammad.