Police officials examine damaged charity office, Mehak following a car bomb explosion in Quetta. A car bomb exploded outside a charity's office, wounding two, police said. –AFP Photo

QUETTA: A car bomb exploded outside a charity’s office, wounding two people in Quetta, police said on Tuesday.

Ten houses were also damaged in the remotely-detonated blast in the capital of impoverished Balochistan province, which suffers from a separatist insurgency, sectarian violence and Taliban militancy.

“Two passers-by including a woman received shrapnel wounds but they are out of danger,” senior police official Zaman Tarin told AFP.

An official from the local charity that was hit, Mehak, which operates with local and foreign help to promote education in the area, said it had received no threats of violence in the past.

“We have no idea why our office was targeted,” Fahimuz Zaman, from the charity, said.

The province, which borders war-torn Afghanistan and Iran, has recently seen an upswing in violence. No group claimed responsibility for the bombing and Tarin said a police investigation had been opened.