Pakistani paramedics treat an injured Frontier Corps (FC) member in a hospital after a bomb explosion in Quetta on Saturday.

At least one soldier was killed and four others wounded including a passerby when a bomb exploded at a paramilitary checkpoint in southwest Pakistan, police said.

The bomb, planted close to the Frontier Corps (FC) checkpoint went off early Saturday when soldiers reached the site for daily duty in Quetta, the main town of oil and gas rich Baluchistan province, senior police official Abdul Waheed Khattak said.

“It was an IED (improvised explosive device) which exploded the moment soldiers reached the checkpoint,” Khattak said.

He added the blast killed one soldier and wounded four others including a teenager passing the site at the time of the explosion.

“(The) condition of another soldier is also critical,” Khattak said.

Sajjad Ahmad, a senior official from FC, confirmed the attack and casualties.

Thousands of paramilitary troops are deployed in troubled areas of the country to carry out security checks and to help police in maintaining law and order.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the latest attack but Baluch separatists demanding greater autonomy have been waging an insurgency for years and the province is also riven by sectarian strife and violence.

Related articles across the web

• VIDEO: Anti-ISIS Good Guys Build Own IED, Wait for ISIS Truck, Then PURE JUSTICE
• Arrested Boko Haram Suspect Reveals Names of Its Bomb Factory Operators
• Fighting Fire with Fire: Anti-ISIS Group Builds IED Then Arranges Meeting Between Islamic State Suicide Bomber and His 72 Virgins (VIDEO)
• Deadly Bomb Left by Dissidents Could Have Been Found by Children
• Picture of Captured IED Bomb Mastermind, Boko Haram 'Amir,' Bulama Modu
• Troops discover Boko Haram use roofing sheets, bathroom slippers to make bombs
• At least 54 people killed in bomb blasts in Nigeria's Maiduguri
• Boko Haram: Advancing troops recover more villages
• Liverpool street cordoned off after two improvised explosive devices found
• Notice: NG17 7LJ, Acorn Surface Technology Limited: environmental permit issued