section_path: Hijacking
section_name: Hijacking
paragraph_text: Hijacking
  
  At 9 a.m. on 11 March 2025, the Jaffar Express train departed Quetta en route to Peshawar, a journey of around 1,600 kilometres (990 mi). The train consisted of nine coaches and the locomotive. Around 450 passengers were reported to have been on board, including military personnel. Prior to the attack, the BLA insurgents sabotaged the train tracks with 8 improvised explosive devices, so that the train would stop within the mountainous area. The explosives detonation caused the train's fuel tank to explode, causing a sudden halt and four coaches to derail. Some 157 kilometres (98 mi) from Quetta and about 21 kilometres (13 mi) west of the city of Sibi, the BLA hijacked the train inside Tunnel No. 8, between Pehro Kunri and Mushkaf stations. The group blew up explosives on the train tracks before opening fire on the train.
  
  Five police officers and two Frontier Corps (FC) personnel escorted the train, and, according to one police officer, "hundreds" of militants surrounded the tracks. The BLA insurgents were equipped with launchers and guns and threatened to kill people if they did not come out of the train. The defenders fought and engaged with the attackers, giving resistance for over an hour and an half until they were depleted of ammunition which resulted in the defenders eventually being defenceless. The assistant train driver Saad Qamar used wireless communications to warn a nearby train station about the attack, but it was cut off after the engine was turned off to prevent fire from the leaking diesel cans hit by gunfire.
  
  As soon as the train stopped, dozens of militants came down from the mountains and boarded the train and separated women and men into groups and checked their identification cards. The attackers did not harm elderly people or women. According to a witness, the BLA generally rounded hostages up by ethnicity but also executed soldiers or people they did not like on the spot. Because the hijacking occurred in an isolated mountainous area, the fate of the hostages was not immediately clear. According to Shahid Rind, the Balochistan provincial government spokesman, the surrounding terrain prevented authorities from quickly reaching the area. Pakistan Railways temporarily suspended its train operations between Balochistan and Punjab and Sindh in response to the attack.
  
  As night fell, most of the attackers withdrew, leaving only 20 to 25 men behind to guard the captives. In the darkness, some hostages attempted to flee, but the militants opened fire. At dawn, when FC reinforcements arrived, drawing the militants' focus, several people, including a police officer, managed to escape.
  
  The hostages were reported to be mostly law enforcement personnel and non-Baloch civilians. The militants kept a close watch on the train's security personnel and warned authorities against attempting to rescue the hostages themselves. Some of the insurgents were equipped with suicide bombs and sat next to the hostages to further prevent an easy rescue by authorities. The BLA spokesman Jeeyand Baloch offered exchanges between the train hostages and jailed militants. The BLA released some civilian hostages such as Balochistan residents, the elderly, women, and children while keeping those who were government workers or military personnel on leave to return to their homes in Punjab for Ramadan. The same day that the hijacking occurred, BLA issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the Pakistani government in which political prisoners, including Baloch movement affiliates, were to be unconditionally released. The next day, it threatened to "punish" five hostages for each hour after the ultimatum had expired. Pakistani officials said they then were yet to communicate with anyone on the train as the area has no internet and mobile network coverage.