The general director of Public Relations between Services (ISPR), Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, will hold a press conference at 3:30 pm today to reveal the details of the kidnapping of Jaffar Express and the subsequent authorization operation.
Baluchistan’s prime minister, Sarfaraz Bugti, will also be present.
The kidnapping incident occurred on Tuesday afternoon, when the train, which was traveling from Quetta to Peshawar and transported 440 passengers, was ambushed by the terrorists of the Baluchistan Liberation Army (Bla). They opened fire on the train and kept passengers as hostages, which led the security forces to start an operation that lasted two days.
On Wednesday night, Lieutenant General Chaudhry confirmed the conclusion of the operation, stating that the 33 terrorists present at the site were neutralized. He also confirmed that 21 passengers and four members of the border body staff lost their lives in the kidnapping, but no hostages were damaged during the final rescue phase.
A day ago, a high -level security conference was held in Quetta, reaffirming the resolution of the state to counteract any attempt to destabilize Pakistan with full strength. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, head of the Army personnel, General Syed also Munir, federal and provincial ministers, senior civil and military officials, and political party representatives attended the meeting, according to the State Pakistan radio.
After the debatable, Prime Minister Shehbaz, at a press conference, urged the National Unity and asked Pakistan’s political leadership to sit along with the military to discuss the challenges facing the country.
On Thursday a session of the National Assembly was also held, during which the Minister of Defense, Khawaja Asif, attacked the PTI for “politicizing” the kidnapping incident and “misunderstanding” the situation on social networks.
The attack caused a generalized conviction of different countries, including China, the United States, Iran and Germany.
Bla attacks
Baluchistan has witnessed an increase in terrorist attacks during the past year. In November 2024, at least 26 people died and 62 were injured after a suicidal explosion crossed a Quetta railway station.
In 2024, the forbidden Bla arose as a key perpetrator of terrorist violence in Pakistan, according to a report by the group of experts based in Islamabad Institute for Peace Studies (Pips).
In August last year, dozens of militants affiliated with Bla launched numerous attacks throughout the province, in which at least 50 people, including 14 security men, lost their lives. In response, security forces had neutralized 21 militants.
At the beginning of that month, the then attached commissioner of Panjgur, Zakir Baloch, was shot dead on the Queta-Karachi National Highway, with CM Bugti stating that the bla was the group behind it.
In October 2024, a suicide bombing near the Karachi airport killed two Chinese nationals and a Pakistani citizen, for which two Suspects of Bla were sent to jail with judicial reference, while a investigation body was also formed.
The group also attributed the responsibility for the suicide bombardment of Quetta Railway in November last year, in which at least 26 people, including 16 security personnel, lost their lives and another 61 were injured.
Pakistan designated Bla as a terrorist organization in April 2006 after the group repeatedly attacked security personnel.
In January of this year, a former Bla member said during a press conference that the forbidden group “average citizens washed the brain to think about a certain way about Baluchistan and resorted to terrorist activities.”
Last month, the Bla attributed the responsibility of an attack at the Barkhan of Baluchistan, where seven passengers bound for Punjab were downloaded from a bus and dead dead.
In the previous large -scale kidnappings in the country, one that particularly comes to mind was in 1994, when three armed militants from Afghanistan took control of a school bus near Peshawar and took around 70 children as hostages. The bus was taken to the Afghanistan embassy in Islamabad, where elite command units fired them the next day.
