Armed militants reportedly held hostage to approximately 450 train passengers and wounded the train driver during an attack in the volatile southwestern province of Balochistan in Pakistan, said civil servants.
The separatist Baloch Liberation Army has threatened to carry out all the hostages who are in custody if the Pakistani authorities try to intervene.
“More than 450 passengers on board are held hostage by Schutters,” Muhammad Kashif, a high railroad government official in Quetta, the capital of the province, told reporters.
In a statement, De Bla claimed the responsibility for the attack, in which they said that six soldiers were killed.
The group said they had taken hostages from the train, including safety forces, with the exact number in their custody unclear.
“During this operation, BLA hunters released women, children and Baloch passengers, so that all remaining hostages personally serve staff of the occupied forces,” the group said in a statement.
The Jaffar Express was en route from Quetta in the province of Southwestern Balochistan in Pakistan to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when it was fired, said railway officials.
Civil servants of the provincial government or railways have not confirmed that hostages were taken.
The Jaffar Express was on the way of Quetta in the province of Southwestern Balochistan in Pakistan to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when it was fired, said railway functionaries, said
Trains in Balochistan usually have security staff on board, because separatists have previously made fatal attacks on trains and security forces in the region.
In November, a separatist group carried out a suicide attack at a train station in Quetta where 26 people were killed, including security staff, railway staff and passengers.
The oil and mineral-rich Balochistan is the largest but also least populated province of Pakistan.
It is a hub for the ethnic Baloch -lessness of the country, whose members say they are confronted with discrimination and exploitation by the central government.
