By Agencies

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A bomb blast has killed at least two people near a luxury waiting lounge at the main railway station in the eastern Pakistan city of Lahore on Tuesday.

Senior police officer Abdul Razzaque Cheema told the AFP news agency that "it was a bomb blast, two people have been killed and 10 injured,".

Senior police officer Ali Ahmad Malik said the bomb was left in a bag and the dead were a porter and a policeman.

Rescuers say another 25 were wounded and taken to hospital.

Bomb disposal officials told the Express Tribune newspaper that about 5kg of explosive material had been used in the bomb.

The blast took place near the lounge for the luxury Business Express train to Karachi, a service launched two months ago offering first-class travel between Pakistan's two biggest cities.

TV pictures showed a waiting room at the station which bore the brunt of the blast, its floor strewn with broken glass and upended furniture.

City police chief Aslam Tareen told the Reuters news agency that "it was an act of terrorism and we are investigating how the terrorist came  inside the railway station," he said.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani expressed grief and shock over the attack.

Pakistan suffers frequent attacks, but this has been the first in Lahore for a few months since a bomb at a Sunni Muslim shrine in February 2011 which killed two people.

The last major attack in Lahore was in January 2011, when at least 11 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a Shia procession.

The previous year in September 2010, 31 people were killed in an attack on another Shia procession in the city.

Since 2007, more than 4,900 people have been killed across Pakistan in various attacks.