The Jaffar Express, a train with over 400 people on board, was hijacked in Pakistan’s Balochistan province on Tuesday, leaving at least 21 passengers and 33 attackers dead. The separatist militia, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), claimed responsibility.
BLA militants bombed the railway track and then hurled rockets and opened gunfire on the train before getting on board and holding the passengers hostage at a remote and isolated junction. The group’s immediate demand was for its members to be released from prison, but Pakistan’s security forces launched an operation early on Wednesday, and ended the hijacking by the end of the day. The military claims all of the civilian casualties took place before the launch of its operation, which cannot be independently verified. The BLA claims it killed over 50 passengers in the raid.
In the first couple of months of this year alone, the BLA has launched a murderous attack on bus passengers, raided a market, bombed a coach, and killed dozens of security personnel in multiple attacks across Balochistan, in the west of the country.
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