Peshawar, Pakistan-Pakistani forces have released 190 passengers from a train that was kidnapped by separatist militants, security officials said Wednesday, since the fighting continued to release more hostage dozens in the hands of militants in explosive vests.
On Tuesday, more than 400 people, including 214 soldiers and other security personnel, were in the Jaffar Express while traveling since Quetta, the capital of the disturbing province of the southwest of Baluchistan of Pakistan, to the city of northern Peshawar.
When he entered a tunnel in a remote and mountain district of Baluchistan, the railway road was flown by militants who then opened fire on the train, killing 11 people in the first kidnapping of Pakistan.
Armed with rockets, grenades and weapons, the assailants began to take passengers as hostages. Security officials said the militants separated the application personnel from the law of others before taking them to the mountains in small groups.
The militants said Tuesday that they still had 214 people as hostages, according to Reuters.
The rescue operation is carried out extremely cautious, the officials said, since the hostages are surrounded by militants with vests loaded with explosives.
“They are using these hostages as human shields,” a senior security official told NBC News, who refused to be identified because he was not authorized to speak with the media of the media.
The Baloch Liberation Army (Bla), an armed ethnic group that has fought an insurgency of years against the Pakistani government, the responsibility of the attack was attributed. The group said he was looking for the release of political prisoners of Baloch, activists and others within 48 hours, threatening to execute hostages if the government did not comply.
Security officials said that up to 27 militants had been killed so far in the operation to free the remaining hostages, whose exact number is not clear.
The Bla said that none of his combatants had been killed and said that the hostages had not been released, but that he had “released all women, children, the sick and civilians Baloch.”
The 11 people killed in the initial attack included the train driver and eight paramilitary soldiers, security officials said. Other thirty -seven were injured, including two officers from the Pakistan army who were transferred by plane to a military hospital to receive treatment.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned what he called the “cowardly attack.”
“Point to innocent passengers during the Pacific and Blessed Month of Ramadan clearly reflects that these terrorists have no connection with Islam, Pakistan or Baluchistan,” he said. “The fight against terrorism will continue until this threat is completely eradicated in the country.”
The nine training train remains stuck in the tunnel, with the area cordoned off by the security forces.
“We have reinforced security in Bolan in view of the situation,” Rana Muhammad Dilawar, head of the District Police Office, said.
Security officials said that 80 hostages that were released on Tuesday night, including 43 men, 26 women and 11 children, had reached security at a railway station in the Mach district of Baluchistan, the largest, less populated and less developed province of Pakistan.
They said the hostages had to walk for several hours during the night before boarding a load train because the railway road had been damaged by militants.
The Bla seeks the independence of Baluchistan, a province rich in resources that limits Afghanistan and Iran, and its Baloch ethnic minority.
“The main reasons why the conflict continues after decades is because the establishment is anti -democratic activities and backed by the United States in Afghanistan neighboring have fed instability, and terrorism in Pakistan is unbridled,” said Rizwan Ullah Kobab, president of the Department of History of the University of the University of Government in Faisalabad, Pakistan.
Militant violence has increased in Baluchistan since the forces led by the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, allowing the Taliban to return to power. Pakistan and Afghanistan have accused of supporting anti -government insurgencies in the countries of the other.
The BL carries out frequent attacks against Pakistani security forces, but has also attacked civilians, including Chinese citizens who work in infrastructure projects.
A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday that Beijing strongly condemned the train attack and “will continue to support Pakistan in his anti -terrorist efforts.”
Mushtaq Yusufzai reported from Peshawar, and Jennifer Jett and Mithil Aggarwal reported from Hong Kong.
