Bomb Blasts Pakistani Bridge

A bomb exploded Sunday on a bridge in central Pakistan minutes before Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was to have passed over it, killing four policemen, a senior police official said.

The bridge, located two miles from Sharif's private residence in the town of Raiwind, was completely destroyed in what police said was an assassination attempt on the Pakistani leader.

Raiwind is 14 miles south of Lahore, the capital of central Punjab province.

Police blamed the explosion on the ethnic Muttahida Qami Movement. The party had once been allied with Sharif until he blamed it for ethnic violence in the southern port city of Karachi. The MQM offered no immediate comment.

The explosion occurred at around 10 a.m. (midnight EST) when Sharif and his family were expected to cross the bridge on their way from Lahore to Raiwind. However, their arrival had been delayed.

"We started late for Raiwind because there was a delay in our preparation," the prime minister's wife, Kusloom Nawaz Sharif, told The Associated Press.

Sharif and his family used a helicopter to reach their residence.

In the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, Assistant Superintendent of Police Muneer Sheikh said that bomb experts were investigating the blast. "We don't have any further details," Shikh said.

A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that three MQM workers had been arrested in Karachi, the capital of Sindh province, on suspicion of having planned the explosion. The official did not identify the suspects. Police in Lahore raided the MQM office but made no arrests.

Sharif has blamed the MQM for most of the bloodletting in Karachi, and set up military courts last month to try those accused in the killings.

The MQM, which represents Urdu-speaking people who immigrated from British India at its independence in 1947, denies the accusations and alleges that the government is engaging in terrorism against its ethnic group.

In October, the government dismissed the government of Sindh province, blaming it for failing to keep peace in Karachi, a city of 14 million people. The province has since been governed directly by the federal government, which suspended civil rights in Sindh and ordered the army to quell violence there.

Opposition parties and human rights groups condemn these moves as unconstitutional.