A suicide bomber has struck police outside the Lahore high court in eastern Pakistan, causing multiple casualties, witnesses and police said.

"Twenty people have been killed and 60 wounded. Most of the victims are policemen. It was a suicide attack," Mian Ejaz, a senior city official, said.

"It was outside the high court building. There are reports of some casualties," Malik Mohammad Iqbal, the city police chief said.

The blast ripped through a busy square in front of the Lahore high court as police were gathering ahead of a protest by lawyers against the rule of Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president.

Motorcycle bomber

"A man came on a motorcycle and police stopped him when he approached the police post, then he blew himself up," Aftab Cheema, senior superintendent of police in Lahore, told reporters.

"Most of the casualties were policeman. There were a large number of police posted outside [the court] because the lawyers had planned a rally against the government today."

Pakistan has seen a wave of bomb attacks in recent months but there have been none in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province.

The blast comes two weeks after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in a gun and suicide bomb attack in the northern city of Rawalpindi.

In 2007, more than 800 people were killed in attacks, mainly suicide bombings targeting the security forces.

The majority of those attacks have taken place since July, when the army raided a pro-Taliban mosque in the capital Islamabad, killing at least 100 people.

PHOTO CAPTION 

People carry a policeman injured in a suicide bombing outside a court in the centre of Lahore January 10, 2008. [Reuters]

Al-Jazeera