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The Pakistani army confirmed that the military operation against Baloch militants, who hijacked a train with hundreds of passengers in Balochistan, has ended.
An operation to rescue hundreds of people taken hostage when a train was hijacked by a separatist militant group in remote south-west Pakistan is over and all 33 militants present at the scene have been eliminated, the Army spokesman announced according to news agency PTI.
Army spokesman Lt Gen Ahmad Sharif Chaudhry in a television broadcast added that twenty-one hostages and four paramilitary soldiers were killed by militants from the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), who attacked the Jaffar Express, blowing up a railway line.
“The armed forces successfully concluded the operation in the (Wednesday) evening by killing all terrorists and rescuing all passengers safely,” Lt Gen Chaudhry said.
“Today we freed a large number of people, including women and children … The final operation was carried out with great care,” he said, adding 440 people had been on board and security forces had cleared the train “bogey to bogey”.
The hijacking occurred on Tuesday afternoon as the train with nine bogies travelling from Quetta to Peshawar, passed through a tunnel between the Paneer and Peshi railway stations in Balochistan’s rugged mountains. At least 100 of those on the train were members of the security forces, officials have said.
The Mashkaf Tunnel is located around 157km from Quetta.
The BLA had claimed that large numbers of those it is holding are military or police personnel, but the regional government said that the hostages are mostly civilians.
Radio Pakistan earlier reported that the attackers were in contact with facilitators in Afghanistan and had positioned suicide bombers close to hostages.
“The terrorists are using innocent people as human shields,” an official told Radio Pakistan.
The attack was unprecedented, marking the first-ever hijacking of an entire train in Pakistan. The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility, asserting that they had taken and later freed hostages, though this could not be independently verified.
The separatist group had said it had bombed the track before storming the train in the remote Sibi district, claiming the train was under its control.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack, saying, “The nation is deeply shocked … but such cowardly acts will not shake Pakistan’s resolve for peace.” He added that “dozens of terrorists have been sent to hell.”
(With Inputs from PTI & Reuters)