QUETTA: An explosion on the railway track caused three carriages of the Jaffar Express to derail in Mastung’s Dasht area on Tuesday, leaving several passengers injured, officials confirmed.
According to railway authorities, one carriage overturned while two others came off the track. The train was travelling from Peshawar to Quetta at the time of the incident.
Rescue sources confirmed that ambulances had been dispatched from Quetta to Dasht to transport the injured to hospitals. Levies officials said multiple passengers sustained injuries in the accident.
This is not the first time the train service has been attacked.
Earlier in June, five bogies of Jaffar Express derailed after a blast took place on a railway track near Jacobabad. The train was en route from Peshawar to Quetta.
The explosion damaged the railway line, disrupting train services in the area, however, no casualties were reported, they added.
On March 11, the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) militants blew up train tracks and assaulted the Jaffar Express, holding over 440 passengers hostage in a day-long standoff with security services in a remote mountain pass in the Bolan district.
The military, after clearing the train and rescuing hostages, killed 33 attackers. Before the operation began, terrorists had martyred 26 passengers, while four security personnel were martyred during the operation.
Three days earlier, the mastermind of the attack and operational commander of the Indian-backed Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) was killed in Afghanistan, security sources said.
Gul Rehman, aka Ustad Mureed — the senior commander of BLA’s Majeed Brigade, was killed in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, the sources added.
Gul Rehman was also involved in attacks on innocent citizens, personnel of security agencies, Chinese nationals and other institutions, the sources further said. “The terrorist linked to Fitna al-Hindustan also targeted different projects of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).”
A surge in terrorist activities has been witnessed in recent days by Fitna al-Khawarij terrorists in Pakistan, who are sheltering on Afghan soil and are funded and sponsored by India’s RAW — the Research and Analysis Wing.
The uptick in cross-border terror incidents has occurred since Taliban rulers returned to Afghanistan in 2021, particularly in the bordering provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
Pakistan had repeatedly asked the Afghan Taliban government to cut ties with the proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and meet its commitment to eliminate the terror group from Afghan soil, cautioning that failure to act would be treated as “hostile” activity.
