Security officials and people gather around the wreckage of a vehicle after bomb explosion in Quetta on January 29, 2011. — Photo by AFP

QUETTA: Eight people, including three policemen, were injured Saturday when a bomb targeting a senior police official exploded on Quetta’s Alamdar road, police said.

The bomb, planted in a Suzuki car, exploded as a police vehicle carrying Shaban Ali passed through the heart of Quetta, the capital of oil and gas rich Balochistan province, senior police official Hamid Shakeel told AFP.

Rescue teams rushed to the site of the blast and shifted the injured to nearby hospitals.

Shakeel said nobody has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

Local security officials, who declined to be identified, also confirmed the incident.

Moreover, security agencies cordoned off the area and started an investigation into the attack.

Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, has seen an upswing in violence recently, with the province suffering from a separatist insurgency, sectarian violence and Taliban militants.

Hundreds of people have died since militants rose up in 2004 demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region's natural oil, gas and mineral resources.