Pakistan on Fire and Its Effects on India

[dalvinder45]

The Jaffar Express, carrying around 400 passengers in nine coaches, was going from Pakistan’s Quetta to Peshawar when Baloch Liberation Army militants derailed it using explosives and hijacked it on Tuesday in the country’s restive Balochistan.

IMAGE: A passenger, who was rescued from a train after it was attacked by terrorists, receives medical aid at the Mach railway station in Mach, Balochistan, Pakistan, March 11, 2025. Photograph: Reuters
Soon after the explosion, the BLA militants started firing at the train indiscriminately.

The security forces so far rescued 190 passengers from the hijacked train and killed 30 Baloch rebels, as they continued to battle heavily-armed insurgents for a second day on Wednesday.
There was a huge explosion and firing, a scene that can never be forgotten, said Mushtaq Muhammad as he recounted the moment when Baloch militants attacked the Jaffar Express.

“After that, the firing started. The firing continued for an hour. It was a scene that can never be forgotten," he said.

Mushtaq said that the firing gradually stopped and the armed men entered the bogies.

“They started checking the identity cards of some people and separated some of them. Three militants were guarding the doors of our coach. They told the people that they would not say anything to civilians, women, old people and Baloch people,” he said.

Mushtaq also said these people (attackers) were talking to each other in Balochi and their leader was repeatedly telling them to keep a special eye on the security personnel and they should not get out of hand. Noor, who was in coach number seven of the same train, was travelling from Quetta to Rawalpindi with his wife and two children.

“The explosion was so intense that the windows and doors of the train shook and one of my children, who was sitting near me, fell down,” he said.

“The firing must have lasted for about fifty minutes... During this time, we were not even breathing, not knowing what would happen,” Noor said.

 

[dalvinder45]

Pakistan’s security forces say they have rescued 190 passengers from a train that was hijacked as it was travelling on Tuesday from Quetta, the provincial capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, to Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Fighters belonging to the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist group seeking Balochistan’s secession from Pakistan, have claimed responsibility for the attack.
Pakistani officials have described their continuing efforts as a “complex operation” against the group, which targeted the Jaffar Express train as it was passing through tunnels near Sibi city, about 160km (100 miles) from Quetta. Security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had killed 27 fighters. At least 10 passengers, including the train driver, were also killed, they said. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the casualty count provided by the officials.

BLA fighters released several passengers. Security officials confirmed that a group of passengers made their way safely to a smaller station near the site of the attack, as a military operation to rescue others continued.