The dividing fighters destroyed a train carrying more than 400 people in a secluded mountainous area of southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday. The fate of the passengers, dozens of whom the fighters said they were holding hostages, were not immediately clear.
The fighters, the ethnic fighters of Baloch, forced the train to stop in the Bolan area of Balochistan province after a fire to open it, according to rail and police officials. The train traveled from Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, to Peshawar, the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. It was to pass through several cities, such as Lahore and Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.
Shahid Rind, a spokesman for the District Government of the Backedan, said authorities are struggling to reach the ambush due to provocative territory.
Rashid Hussain, a merchant at Quetta, said his family had left on the train to Rawalpindi in the morning, but had become inaccessible after 2 pm “I’m deeply worried,” he said by phone. “The government does not provide updates. Neither roads nor trains are safe in this province.”
The seizure of the passenger train underlined the increasing complexity of a dividing uprising in Pakistan’s southwest seeking greater political control and economic growth in the region.
The attack was the last in a series of violent episodes in the Backedan, a province bordering Iran and Afghanistan, which is the place of large projects led by Chinese, including a strategic port.
A group known as Baloch’s liberation army, or Bla, took responsibility for the train hijack.
The group said it had taken 182 hostages, including members of various security agencies traveling on permission. “Political passengers, especially women, children, the elderly and citizens of Baloch, have been safely released and provided a safe route,” the team said in a telegram.
This account could not be verified independently and the government has not yet confirmed the reports of hostages or any victims.
Last year, BLA carried out one of Pakistan’s deadly terrorist attacks, a suicide bombing that killed at least 25 people, including security personnel, at Quetta’s busy train station.
The team also took responsibility for a deadly bombing aimed at a escort carrying Chinese citizens near Karachi’s international airport, Pakistan’s largest city. The separatists accuse the Chinese of stealing the resources of the province.
In recent months, autonomous groups have escalated high -profile attacks along the three major motorways of the Backedan, directly challenging the power of the state. Last week, an alliance of the teams, including BLA, announced plans to intensify attacks on Pakistani security forces, infrastructure and Chinese interests in the area.
“He points out two basic trends: the growing operational capabilities and the complexity of the autonomist groups and the weakening control of the government in the Backedan,” said Abdul Basit, a senior associate of S. Rajaratnam’s International Studies School in Singapore.
At Quetta Railway Station, passenger families on the train anxiously gathered the information meter on Tuesday, looking for updates.
Many people in the area had begun to prefer rail trips after frequent racing ambushes on motorways on which passengers were killed after their removal. Frequent protests also caused road interference.
Train services were repeated only in October after a two -month suspension due to fighter rail attacks.
