Police said it appeared to be a sectarian attack linked to the nearby shooting of a Shiite banker whose body had been brought to the hospital shortly before the bomb blast.

"Hundreds of people including a local MP and dozens of journalists rushed to the hospital where the body was lying. As the crowd swelled at the casualty ward a suicide bomber blew himself up," crime investigation department chief Wazir Khan Nasir told AFP.

City police chief Ghulam Shabbir Sheikh put the death toll at 10, including four policemen and a cameraman with a private television station. More than 30 people were wounded, including at least four journalists and a local MP.

The attack occurred after a UN report said Pakistani authorities could have prevented the 2007 murder of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto and deliberately failed to properly investigate her death, but there were no apparent links.

AFP