The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), which claimed responsibility for the attack, blew up the railway track and fired rockets at the Jaffar Express on Tuesday.
The tense silence inside the Jaffar Express ended in a barrage of gunfire as Pakistani security forces stormed the hijacked train on Wednesday, killing all 33 separatist militants and rescuing hundreds of passengers.
The day-long standoff, marked by explosions and hostage threats, began when Baloch militants attacked the train in Balochistan, demanding the release of prisoners.
As special forces moved in, militants wearing suicide vests sat among terrified passengers. In a final planned assault, commandos eliminated the attackers. However, the ordeal left 21 passengers and four security personnel dead.
“Today, we rescued many people, including women and children. The final operation was executed with utmost caution,” Pakistan military spokesperson Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry told reporters. He added that no civilians were killed in the final stage of the operation.
The Baloch Liberation Army, which claimed responsibility for the attack, blew up the railway track and fired rockets at the Jaffar Express on Tuesday.
The train, carrying 440 passengers, was travelling from Quetta in Balochistan to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when it was targeted.
Before the army’s announcement, the Baloch Liberation Army claimed to have killed 50 passengers on Wednesday evening. On Tuesday, it said it was holding 214 people, mostly security personnel.
The group had warned that it would begin executing hostages if authorities failed to meet its 48-hour deadline to release Baloch political prisoners, activists, and those it claimed were abducted by the military.
The BLA is the largest of several ethnic armed groups fighting the government in Balochistan, a region bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
In recent months, the militants have intensified their attacks, adopting new tactics to cause heavy casualties and strike at Pakistan’s military.
