Jaffar Express train attack: at least 3 lost lives as operation under way to rescue hostages

At least three people were killed on Tuesday in a terrorist attack on Jaffar Express train in Balochistan province, rescue and railway officials said.

“One police officer, one soldier and the driver of the train are dead,” Nazim Farooq, a paramedic at Mach railway station, which has been turned into a makeshift hospital, told AFP. Muhammad Aslam, a railway official at the station, confirmed the details.

Meanwhile, the attack led to dozens of the passengers being taken as hostages. Police said 35 were taken as the hostages while the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a terrorist organisation in Pakistan that claimed the responsibility of the attack, said it had abducted 182 passengers.

Pakistani troops freed dozens of train passengers taken hostage, with hundreds more still being held in an ongoing siege.

Security sources said that heavy gunfire was ongoing between security forces and the terrorists.

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Gunmen forced the train to a halt in a remote, mountainous area of Balochistan province on Tuesday afternoon, in an assault that was immediately claimed by the BLA.

“Security forces have successfully freed 80 hostages, including 43 men, 26 women, and 11 children, from the terrorists,” security sources told AFP, adding that 13 militants had been killed.

“Efforts are ongoing to ensure the safe release of the remaining passengers. The terrorists have been surrounded, and the operation will continue until the last terrorist is neutralised.”

Wounded passengers have been taken to nearby hospitals.

Earlier in the day, Muhammad Kashif, a senior railway government official in Quetta, the capital of the province, told AFP that “over 450 passengers onboard are being held hostage by gunmen.”

In a statement, the BLA said gunmen bombed the railway track before storming aboard the train.

“The militants swiftly took control of the train and have taken all passengers hostage,” claimed the statement released to media.

The incident happened around 1:00 pm (0800 GMT) in rural Sibi district, near to a city station where the train had been due to stop.

The train had left Quetta for Peshawar, in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – a more than 30-hour journey – at around 9:00 am.

A senior police official from the area bordering Sibi, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said that “the train remains stuck just before a tunnel surrounded by mountains”.

An emergency has been imposed at hospitals in Sibi, according to the government official.

Decades-long insurgency

The area is a mountainous region making it easier for terrorists to have hideouts and plan attacks.

Pakistan accuses the Taliban government in Kabul of offering safe haven to militants to plan attacks.

The BLA have launched larger scale attacks in recent months, including holding a motorway overnight and identifying travellers from outside the province and shooting them dead.

BLA terrorists also killed seven Punjabi travellers in February after they were ordered off a bus.

In November, the BLA claimed responsibility for a bombing at Quetta’s main railway station that killed 26 people, including 14 soldiers.

Last year was the deadliest year in almost a decade, with more than 1,600 people killed in attacks in Pakistan, mostly in the border regions, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based analysis group.