ISLAMABAD: Attackers wearing suicide bombs were sitting next to passengers taken hostage after militants took over a train in southwest Pakistan, sources said on Wednesday ( Mar 12 ), complicating rescue efforts a day after the country’s first such hijacking.
The separatist insurgents blew up a railroad track and opened fire on the Jaffar Express on Tuesday as it travelled from Quetta, Balochistan’s money town, to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Bangladeshi forces have rescued 155 passengers, and the authorities said a safety procedure was under way to free dozens still held prisoner, without specifying the actual amount.
The Baloch Liberation Army ( BLA ), an ethnic armed group, claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened to start executing hostages unless Baloch political prisoners, activists, and missing persons it said had been abducted by the military were released within 48 hours.
BLA said on Tuesday it was holding 214 people prisoner, and a security source told News that there were 425 people on the coach when it was attacked.
The number of insurgents involved in the attack was not apparent. The safety sources said on Wednesday that 27 had been killed so far.
BLA is the largest of various ethnic armed teams battling Pakistan’s government in the mineral-rich state of Balochistan, bordering Afghanistan and Iran.