QUETTA (Reuters) - Separatist militants said on Wednesday they have killed 50 passengers from a train hijacking in southwestern Pakistan as security forces worked to rescue the hostages.
Dozens of separatist Baloch militants on Tuesday blew up the railway track and hurled rockets at the Jaffar Express, carrying more than 400 passengers, a security official said.
Government officials say 190 of them have been rescued so far. The militants say all the passengers detained are security officials and all civilians have been freed.
“Today, the enemy forces attempted an armed advance using heavy artillery and sophisticated weaponry, leading to intense clashes,” the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) said in a statement.
“In direct retaliation to Pakistan’s persistent aggression ... the BLA has executed 50 additional captive enemy personnel within the past hour.”
Hundreds of troops and teams in helicopters have been drafted into the effort to rescue the hostages in the remote mountainous area where the train was stopped. The train driver and several others had already been killed, officials said, before the militants’ latest statement.
Hours before the BLA made its announcement on the 50 hostages, the security official said all the militants at the site had been killed and the operation had entered its “final phase”. Reuters was also not able to verify the official’s account.
Junior Interior Minister Talal Chaudhry told Geo television earlier on Wednesday that militants were wearing suicide vests as they sat among the passengers held hostage, complicating the rescue attempt. He said 70-80 attackers had hijacked the train.
The BLA is the largest of several ethnic armed groups battling the government in Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.
The militants have in recent months stepped up their activities using new tactics to inflict high death and injury tolls and target Pakistan’s military.