Baloch train siege ends in death and confusion

Muhammad Amin

At least 25 people have perished in the Balochistan train  siege after security forces stormed the train that was seized by separatist gunmen on Tuesday.

25 bodies were seen being retrieved from the train. Police said four of their members were killed, but other sources contradicted that, saying most of the dead were security forces.

A police statement later seemed to confirm this, when they said “all hostages” had been freed.

It seems the rescue operation did not go exactly according to plan. At one stage, a military official said some of the rescuers had themselves had fallen into the hands of the gunmen.

The siege began on Tuesday after a separatist group bombed a remote railway track in mountainous southwest Balochistan and stormed a t rain with 450 people on board.

The assault was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), one of several separatist groups that accuse outsiders of plundering natural resources in Balochistan that was divided in three by the British, so some of it falls in Pakistan, some in Afghanistan and some in Iran.

Death tolls have varied, with the military saying in an official statement that “21 innocent hostages” were killed by the militants as well as four soldiers in the rescue operation.

But an anonymous railway official in Balochistan said the bodies of 25 people were transported by train away from the hostage site to the nearby town of Mach on Thursday morning.

“Deceased were identified as 19 military passengers, one police and one railway official, while four bodies are yet to be identified,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

A senior local military official overseeing operations confirmed the details.

An army official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, earlier put the military toll at 28, including 27 off-duty soldiers taken hostage.

Passengers who escaped from the siege said after walking for hours through rugged mountains to reach safety that they saw the militants shooting unidentified people dead.

The first funerals are expected to take place on Thursday.

Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif was also expected to visit Balochistan, his office said.

“The Prime Minister expressed grief and sorrow over the martyrdom of security personnel and train passengers during the operation,” it said in a statement.

The BLA released a video of an explosion on the track followed by dozens of militants emerging from hiding places in the mountains to attack the train.

Attacks by separatist groups have soared in the past few years, mostly targeting security forces and ethnic groups from outside the province.

Muhammad Naveed, who managed to escape, told AFP: “They asked us to come out of the train one by one. They separated women and asked them to leave. They also spared elders.”

“They asked us to come outside, saying we will not be harmed. When around 185 people came outside, they chose people and shot them down.”

Babar Masih, a 38-year-old labourer, told AFP on Wednesday he and his family walked for hours through rugged mountains to reach a train that could take them to a makeshift hospital on a railway platform.

“Our women pleaded with them and they spared us,” he said.

“They told us to get out and not look back. As we ran, I noticed many others running alongside us.”

Security forces have been battling a decades-long insurgency in impoverished Balochistan but last year saw a surge in violence in the province compared with 2023, according to the independent Center for Research and Security Studies.