Three people were killed yesterday when a powerful bomb went off on a road along which the Pakistani Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif, was due to pass later in the day near his home city of Lahore.
A police inspector who was making security arrangements for the Prime Minister's journey was injured, police said. They added that the blast occurred beneath a bridge on the road from Lahore, capital of the central province of Punjab, and Mr Sharif's farmhouse at Raiwind, 35 km south of the city.
"Obviously it was targeting the person of the Prime Minister," the Information and Media Development Minister, Mr Mushahid Hussain, said.
In another incident, officials said police yesterday found and defused a bomb on a railway track near the Punjab town of Sialkot near the Indian border before a Lahore-bound passenger train was due along it.
Mr Hussain, speaking in Islamabad, said the Prime Minister was at his residence in Lahore's Model Town neighbourhood when the bomb went off outside the city.
"But the time the bomb exploded . . . was normally the time when the Prime Minister usually went on that route to see his parents in Raiwind," he added.
"Clearly it was a planned and premeditated act of terrorism because it was a time bomb, an explosive device. It killed three people and injured a policeman."
Mr Hussain said authorities had yet not reached any conclusion about the identity or the motives of those behind the bombing. "As of now the investigation is still continuing," he added.
Police in Lahore declined to speculate about the motive of the attack or give further details.
Mr Hussain said he spoke to Mr Sharif after the Prime Minister arrived at Raiwind. He said he found him "in high spirits".
Mr Sharif, who arrived in Lahore on Saturday and is due to preside over a meeting of leaders of municipal organisations today, came to power for a second time two years ago. He scored a landslide victory in a general election then and has since made his mark as Pakistan's most powerful leader in decades.
Groomed by the military leader Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and installed by an army-backed establishment, Mr Sharif became the first industrialist to head a Pakistani government in late 1990 after Ms Benazir Bhutto was sacked by then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan.
In 1993 Mr Sharif himself was sacked by Ishaq Khan in a power struggle. He was reinstated by the Supreme Court but later resigned along with the president in an army-brokered deal that led to new elections, which Ms Bhutto won.
Mr Sharif led his Pakistan Muslim League party to a landslide victory in the 1997 elections which were ordered by President Farooq Leghari after he had sacked Ms Bhutto.
Mr Sharif used his huge parliamentary majority to amend the constitution to divest the presidency of the powers that Mr Leghari had used to sack Ms Bhutto as well as to appoint chiefs of armed forces and provincial governors.
A judge yesterday issued arrest warrants for the former Pakistani cricket captain, Rashid Latif, and batsman, Salim Pervaiz, as they failed to appear before a tribunal investigating match-fixing charges against top players, court officials said in Lahore.
The warrants issued by the Justice Minister, Mr Abdul Qayyum, are bailable, which means the two men may be released on bail if arrested, or may pay bail to avoid arrest.
The Australian cricketers Shane Warne and Mark Waugh have accused the former captain, Salim Malik, of offering them bribes to perform poorly during Australia's tour of Pakistan. Salim Malik denies this.
A judicial inquiry is investigating betting and match-fixing allegations against five senior Pakistani cricketers, including Malik and former captain Wasim Akram. They deny the charges. Latif and Pervaiz are considered key witnesses in the case. The next hearing is set for January 16th and the tribunal will submit its report to President Rafiq Tarar on January 31st.