Stand-off over hijacked Pakistan train ends with 21 hostages dead

Dozens of insurgents also killed in military operation

Soldiers secure Mach railway station in Balochistan after Pakistani troops had freed some passengers from the hijacked train. AFP

Pakistan's military said it had brought an end to a stand-off with separatist militants who hijacked a passenger train in the country's south-western Balochistan province and took hundreds of people hostage.

Military spokesman Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry on Wednesday said 21 hostages and all 33 insurgents had been killed. All the remaining passengers were rescued, officials told news agencies AFP and AP.

The insurgents blew up a railway track on Tuesday and opened fire on the train in the restive province, taking dozens hostage and battling Pakistani troops. The attackers said they were holding 214 people and had threatened to start killing them.

Muhammad Kashif, a senior railway official in the provincial capital Quetta, earlier told AFP that more than 450 passengers had been on board when the siege began.

Passengers rescued from the train sit at Mach railway station in Balochistan on Tuesday night. Reuters

The Baloch Liberation Army, a separatist militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack and had threatened to execute passengers in response to a rescue operation by Pakistani troops.

The BLA demanded the release within 48 hours of Baloch political prisoners, activists and missing people it said had been abducted by Pakistan's military. “BLA is prepared for a prisoner exchange,” it said. “If our demands are not met within the stipulated period or if the occupying state attempts any military action during this time, all prisoners of war will be neutralised and the train will be completely destroyed.”

The group, which seeks independence for Balochistan province on the borders of Afghanistan and Iran, said the hostages included Pakistani army members and other security officials travelling on leave.

The Jaffar Express was on its way from Quetta to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province when it came under fire.

Some of the hostages freed on Tuesday said they had to walk for hours through mountainous terrain to reach safety. “I can't find the words to describe how we managed to escape. It was terrifying,” Muhammad Bilal, who had been travelling with his mother on the train, told AFP.

Pakistani security officials stand guard after passengers rescued from the Jaffar Express train reach a railway station in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan. EPA

One passenger described gunmen sorting through identity cards to confirm who was from outside of the province.

“They came and checked IDs and service cards, shot two soldiers in front of me and took the other four,” said one passenger who asked not to be named, after walking for four hours to the nearest train station. “Those who were Punjabis were taken away by the terrorists."

Soldiers have been battling a decades-long insurgency in impoverished Balochistan but violence has been increasing in the western border regions with Afghanistan since the Taliban took control of the neighbouring country in 2021.

The BLA claims the region's natural resources are being exploited by outsiders and have stepped up attacks targeting Pakistanis from other regions.

In February, BLA militants killed seven Punjabi travellers after they were ordered off a bus. In November, the group carried out a suicide bombing at a train station in Quetta that killed 26 people.

Pakistani authorities and analysts estimate the BLA has about 3,000 fighters. It regularly targets Pakistani troops but has also attacked civilians as well as Chinese citizens working on multibillion-dollar projects related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the latest attack, while UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for the immediate release of the hostages, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.