At least three people have been killed and six injured in a car explosion outside a police station in Mexico’s western state of Michoacan, according to local and federal security officials.

The blast on Saturday took place at a central avenue in Coahuayana, the attorney general’s office said in a statement.

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“The driver died at the scene, while two other people died in the regional hospital, and six others were injured,” it added.

The two victims who died in the hospital were community police officers, said Hector Zepeda, commander of the Coahuayana community police. He said the remains of some of the victims were found scattered in the area of the explosion, which also damaged nearby buildings. Images circulating online showed a completely burned-out vehicle.

The explosion came as the federal government has stepped up security activities in the state following the recent assassinations of an outspoken representative of the lime growers and a popular mayor standing up to the drug cartels.

Last month, President Claudia Sheinbaum sent 2,000 troops – on top of the 4,300 permanent ones and 4,000 in neighbouring states – to Michoacan following the high-profile killings.

“With this operation [from the federal government], a lot of marines came,” Zepeda said. “We stopped doing patrols because the operation is going on.”

The community police, which patrol various rural communities, trace their roots to the civilian vigilante forces that took up arms more than a decade ago to defend communities from the cartels, and then were formalised by the state.

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At least three of the six drug cartels that the United States has designated as “terrorist” organisations – Jalisco New Generation, United Cartels and The New Michoacan Family – operate in Michoacan, in addition to a number of other splinter groups, some supported by the Sinaloa cartel.

Last year, some 3,000 explosive devices were seized in the state compared with 160 in 2022. So far this year, there have been more than 2,000, according to the state security agency.

Michoacan is a key importer of chemical precursors for synthetic drugs. In the last two months, 17 drug laboratories were dismantled by Mexican authorities there. The state also produces avocados exported to the US and is a major producer of limes, sectors extorted by cartels for years.