Police have cordoned off the area and started a search operation in which a handgrenade was found nearby a washroom inside the shrine and the head of a suicide bombers was also found on the spot.

A police officer inspects the blast site in eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on July 2, 2010. At least 43 people were killed and 175 others injured in three suicide bomb attacks at a shrine in Lahore late Thursday night, according to local sources and media reports. [Jamil Ahmad/Xinhua]

Police said that the three suicide bombers were in their early 20s and each of them carried a suicide bomb jacket each containing about ten kilograms of explosives.

One of the suicide bombers was said to be only 17 years old. Further details about the identities of the three suicide bombers, who killed themselves right on the spot, are not known at this stage.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani issued a statement early Friday morning, strongly condemning the terrorist attack.

The prime minister said in the statement that his government is determined to eradicate terrorism in the country.

Thursday's terrorist attack is the second most serious incident in the city of Lahore following a May 28 terrorist attack on two mosques in the city, in which over 90 people were killed and more than 100 others injured.