COLOMBO, July 7 (Xinhuanet) -- An explosion inside a police station in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo on Wednesday has caused at least four deaths while over 12 others were seriously injured, police said.

    A suspected female suicide squad member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels detonated a bomb while being questioned at the police station in Kollupitiya, central Colombo where Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse's office, the US and British and Indian diplomatic missions are located.

    The female member of the Tamil Tiger rebels had been loitering around the nearby office of government minister Douglas Devananda before she detonated the bomb, police said.

    Devananda, a minister in the government of the President Chandrika Kumaratunga leads a rival Tamil party which is bitterly opposed to the LTTE rebels.

    The explosion is the first in the capital city of Colombo sincethe LTTE and the government entered the February 2002 ceasefire ahead of direct negotiations aimed at ending the drawn out ethnic conflict in the north and east of the country. Enditem¡¡