KANO (AFP) – The discovery of a bomb led to a stampede in an area in Bauchi, but authorities were able to defuse it before it exploded, police said Wednesday. Residents discovered the bomb planted on a street near an open-air pub causing people to flee in panic, Bauchi state police commissioner Ikechukwu Ayo Aduba said. Bauchi has been hit by a string of attacks blamed on an Islamist sect known as Boko Haram. “It was a time-bomb device made from an air-conditioning compressor,” Aduba said, adding that it could have caused a powerful explosion. “We still do not know who was behind the bomb and for what motive because no arrest has been made.” A bomb blast targeting a police patrol team in the city injured five policemen on Sunday night, according to Aduba. A Red Cross official had earlier said four policemen were injured. Unknown gunmen also ambushed a joint military-police patrol team Saturday night, injuring a policeman and a bystander before fleeing, said the police commissioner. The ambush was launched in an area reputed to have been a hideout for Boko Haram members, but the police commissioner said it was too early to say who was behind the attacks. Most attacks blamed on Boko Haram have occurred in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, but the sect has also been active in Bauchi. It claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on a beer garden in a military barracks in the city on the day of President Goodluck Jonathan’s inauguration in May which killed 13 people and injured 30 others. The sect was behind a prison attack in the city in September last year, freeing more than 700 inmates, including around 100 of its members.