Pakistani officials say insurgents opened fire at a moving passenger train in the country’s restive southwestern Balochistan province, wounding the driver
On Tuesday, March 11, 2025, Pakistani militants opened fire on a passenger train in the unrest-plagued southwestern province of Balochistan. The driver was injured, and security personnel on board the train retaliated, according to officials.
Following an attack on a train carrying hundreds of people in southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, separatist militants claimed to have taken hostages and threatened to kill them if their demands were not fulfilled.
Whether hostages had been seized was not immediately confirmed by railways and provincial government officials.
Following the incident, the train—which was carrying roughly 400 passengers—was caught within a tunnel, where it was shot at and the driver was hurt, according to railway officials and police.
Security troops reported that they were engaging the militants with gunfire in a hilly region after hearing an explosion near the tunnel.
The militant separatist organization known as the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed in a statement that it had captured security forces and other hostages off the train. If the security personnel did not leave, it threatened to put the hostages to death.
According to railway officials, the Jaffar Express was traveling from Quetta in the southwest Pakistani region of Balochistan to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when it was shot at.
Mohsin Naqvi, Pakistan’s interior minister, denounced the assault and declared that the government will not give in to “beasts who fire on innocent passengers.”
According to Rind, the administration of Balochistan has implemented emergency measures to address the problem.
Separatist terrorist organizations’ decades-long insurgency in Balochistan has resulted in repeated attacks against the army, the government, and Chinese interests in the area, as well as urgent demands for a portion of the region’s mineral-rich resources.
Because separatists have carried out deadly attacks on trains and security forces in the region in the past, security officers are usually on board trains in Balochistan. A suicide attack at a Quetta train station in November by a separatist organization claimed the lives of 26 persons, including passengers, railway employees, and security guards.
The largest and least populous province in Pakistan is Balochistan, which is rich in minerals and oil. It serves as a gathering place for the nation’s ethnic Baloch minority, whose members claim that the central government exploits and discriminates against them.
For all the latest news from Oman and GCC, follow us on Instagram, like us on Facebook & subscribe to our YouTube Channel, which is updated daily.
