'A rain of rockets and bullets': Pakistan's train hijackers' survivors

 Dozens of separatist Baloch fighters attacked the Jaffar Express passenger train in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.

Quetta, Pakistan – Survivors of Tuesday’s deadly train hijacking by Baloch separatists have described how they watched fellow passengers being executed and fled while being shot at.

 As the Jaffar Express traveled through colonial-era tunnels in the rugged, mountainous Bolan Pass, dozens of fighters from the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) fired rocket-propelled grenades and shot at nine of the train's carriages. At approximately 1 p.m. (08:00 GMT), the train that was headed to Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, from Quetta, the provincial capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, was attacked near Sibi city, which is about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from Quetta.

In order to reach Peshawar, the train travels through Punjab for more than 1,600 kilometers (994 miles). The trip takes roughly 30 hours, with stops at about 30 stations across the country.

 On Wednesday night, Pakistan’s security forces said they had concluded a military operation against the fighters, rescuing 346 passengers, and killing all 33 of the attackers.  But 26 passengers, the train driver and a paramilitary soldier were also killed, they said.

 The train was attacked with nearly 400 passengers aboard. The Pakistani government was given a 48-hour deadline on Tuesday by the BLA, which claimed it was holding the passengers hostage and demanded the "unconditional release of Baloch political prisoners, forcibly disappeared persons, and national resistance activists."

On March 12, 2025, plain-clothed members of the security force leave the Mach, Balochistan, Pakistan, railway station after being rescued from an attacked train.

"They simply approached people and shot them," The security forces' operation freed passengers who described their time in captivity as "horrific." Ghulam Sarwar, 48, told Al Jazeera, "I saw so many killings in front of me and I knew that I was the next, but I escaped with other passengers and colleagues on Wednesday morning." An assistant subinspector of the Pakistan Railways Police, he was onboard the train and later made a daring escape with a group of passengers and fellow armed guards.

As is customary, Sarwar was traveling on the train from the Quetta railway station with four other armed railway employees and five soldiers who were responsible for guarding the passengers. He claimed that he and the other armed personnel responded to the attack. He recalled, "But we retaliated with gunfire." He said, "It was like a rain of rockets and bullets on the train." “When we ran out of bullets, they came down and started pulling the passengers from the train.”

 The attackers began by checking the passengers' identity cards, removing passengers who were of Punjabi ethnicity and those who were suspected of being members of the Pakistani military, and then killing them. Sarwar stated, "They killed so many people." He claimed that although he witnessed the fighters "just taking groups of people aside from the railway track and shooting them," he had no idea how many people had been killed.

“After a large number of attackers hugged some remaining fighters who remained behind, the killings continued until 10 p.m. Additionally, they killed anyone who attempted to flee, according to Sarwar.

In the morning, Sarwar, a different group of passengers, and security personnel were able to flee the hostage situation. He stated, "We ran out in the morning, but another railway policeman who was with me was hit on the back by a bullet after the attackers started shooting at us from the nearby mountains." He claimed that the policeman had been killed. He and the other passengers were shot at as they fled, but they made it 6 kilometers (4 miles) along the tracks to the nearby Panir railway station, where Pakistani security forces were waiting to receive them.

"I saw the engine get hit by a rocket," Murad Ali, 68, who was traveling with his wife to the southern city of Jacobabad, witnessed the attack as well. However, the attackers let some of the victims go free. After we heard a lot of firing, I saw a rocket hit the train's engine. They came inside our compartment and asked my identity and ethnicity [Sindhi] and then allowed me to go,” he said.

 According to what he told Al Jazeera, "I accompanied dozens of women and children and we followed the railway track on foot for six kilometers until we reached the Panir railway station after dusk where security forces took us to Mach railway station." After that, the couple went back to Quetta. Murad's wife, Bibi Farzana, said that the train was "completely covered with smoke due to firing and explosions." She went on to say, "They pulled off all the passengers, but they separated ethnic Punjabis from the other passengers."

Pakistan's security officials said on Wednesday that the operation to rescue the hostages had killed 30 fighters and that security clearance was still being done. Balochistan province’s Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said the attack was an attempt by separatists to give the impression that Quetta is a “violent environment”.

 A relief train departing from Quetta station has transported dozens of coffins to the attack site, and the government claimed to have sent additional soldiers to Quetta railway station. Baloch separatists, who call for Pakistani independence, say that the state takes and kills people who criticize it. While this is the first time a whole train has been hijacked, there have been a series of attacks on trains in the past two years.

 Most recently, in November 2024, separatists killed nearly 30 train passengers – most of them Pakistani soldiers – in a suicide bombing at Quetta station as the Jaffar Express was about to depart the station.