QUETTA, Pakistan (AFP) — Gunmen killed a paramilitary soldier and injured a policeman at a checkpost in insurgency-hit southwestern Pakistan late Tuesday, police said.
The shooting took place on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of restive Baluchistan province bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
"Unknown gunmen fired at the checkpost from the roof of nearby houses after which a paramilitary soldier was killed and a policeman was injured," senior police official Rehmatullah Niazi told AFP.
"We have cordoned the area and launched a search for the attackers," he said.
Earlier, the interior ministry announced the arrest of main suspect in a bomb blast that killed six students at an Islamic school.
The bomb, which was hidden in a bundle of clothing, ripped through the madrassa in Qilla Saifullah, a town in Baluchistan, on Monday.
"The culprit involved in an explosion in a madrassa in Qilla Saifullah has been arrested and is under investigation," interior ministry spokesman Javed Cheema told a briefing in Islamabad.
Local officials said Monday that the bomb was left by an Afghan student who stayed overnight at the Imdadul Uloom seminary, but Cheema gave no details about his identity.
The motive for the attack is not yet known and there has been no claim of responsibility.
Baluchistan has been pinpointed by Western and Afghan officials as a key hideout of Taliban militants leading a spiralling insurgency in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Pakistan says it is doing all it can to tackle the problem and says the roots of the insurgency are in Afghanistan.
Gas-rich Baluchistan has also been in the grip of a separate, three-year insurgency launched by ethnic Baluch rebels who want more political rights and a greater share of profits from the region's natural resources.
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