Lahore attack: At least 26 people killed in car bomb targeting police in eastern Pakistan city

Suspected suicide blast follows two similar attacks in the city earlier this year

Pakistani rescue workers move the body of a victim at the site of the explosion (AFP)

At least 26 people have been killed in a car bombing in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.

The blast, which rescue officials said had left 54 people wounded, struck police stationed near a market on the outskirts of the city.

Senior police officer Haider Ashraf said a suicide bomber on a motorcycle targeted officers guarding a demolition site at Kot Lakhpat's vegetable market.

He said many of 54 wounded are policemen and several bystanders were wounded by the impact of the powerful blast.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Video posted on Twitter showed a person on a stretcher being loaded into an ambulance.

Local hospitals declared an emergency after Monday’s explosion on Ferozpur Road, a main thoroughfare that cuts through the city.

The bomb went off in one of the most secure parts of the city, near to where the Chief Minister of Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif, has his office.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the chief minister strongly condemned blast.

In April, a suicide attack on soldiers in Lahore killed six people and wounded 18.

The city was also targeted in February when 13 were killed at a protest rally outside the Punjab Assembly.

Police officers and journalists covering the march were among the casualties.

The attacker, a member of a group allied to the Pakistani Taliban, drove a motorbike into crowds before detonating an explosive device.

Lahore was also targeted on Easter Sunday last year in an attack that claimed the lives of 75 people.

Thousands of suspected terrorists were arrested as part of Pakistan's paramilitary crackdown on Islamist militants in the wake of the attack.