Pakistan announces the end of a confrontation with a train kidnapper in Balochistan and the killing of dozens
Abdullah Al-Haqim 
The Pakistani army announced that the security forces stormed, today, Wednesday, a train kidnapped by separatist militants from the Baluchistan region and detained hostages, in a confrontation that lasted a full day and ended with the killing of all 33 militants, and also killed 21 hostages.
Army spokesman Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said that the security forces succeeded in purifying the train from all the perpetrators, as he put it.
He continued: “We liberated today a large number of people, including women and children … The last operation was carried out very carefully.”
The spokesman added that he had not killed any civilians during the operation, but he made it clear that 21 hostages were killed before the operation began, noting that 440 people were on the train.
Pakistani officials accused the “Balochistan Liberation Army” of being behind the attack, and it is described as the largest faction among the armed factions fighting the Pakistani government in the Balochistan region adjacent to Afghanistan and Iran.
The Security Forces Have Successfully Completed Operation Against Terrorists and Rested All Passengers of Jaffar Express@Officialgispr @Pakistanfauj #Radiopakistan #News https://t.co/yi80vzbp62 pic.twitter.com/jvoxk3jjbv
– Radio Pakistan (@radiopakistan) March 12, 2025
A security source told Reuters that the militants blew up on Tuesday a railway line, and fired missiles at the “Jaafar Express” train when he was on his journey from Kuwait, the capital of the Balochistan region to Peshawar in the Khyber region of Bakhtoun Khwa.
Today, Wednesday, before the Pakistani army announced the end of the confrontation, the Balochistan Liberation Army said it had killed 50 people.
The Balochistan Liberation Army is calling for the independence of the region from Pakistan and the Baluch nationalism, as well as the release of political, activists and missing detainees from Baloch saying that the Pakistani army kidnapped them.
