Author: Saadullah Akhter
Published on: 12/03/2025 | 00:00:00
AI Summary:
Dozens of fighters belonging to the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) targeted nine carriages of the Jaffar Express with rocket-propelled grenades and gunshots as it passed through colonial-era tunnels. The train came under attack near Sibi city, about 160km (100 miles) from Quetta, about 1pm (08:00 GMT) The route makes a journey of more than 1,600km (994 miles) through Punjab to reach its final destination, Peshawar. Ghulam Sarwar, 48, was travelling on the train from Quetta railway station. He was travelling with four other armed railway personnel and five soldiers charged with guarding the passengers. Sarwar said he saw the fighters “taking groups of people aside from the railway track and shooting them” “We ran out in the morning but another railway policeman who was with me was hit by a bullet on his back after the attackers started shooting at us from the near mountains,” Sarwar said. As he and his fellow passengers fled, they were fired upon by separatist fighters but managed to make it 6km (4 miles) along the tracks to the nearby railway station at Panir. Baloch separatists accuse the state of abducting and persecuting those who speak out against it. Most recently, in November 2024, separatistens killed nearly 30 train passengers in a suicide bombing.
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