Islamabad, Mar 13 (EFE).- Dozens of passengers rescued from a train hijacked by separatist militants Balochistan’s Mashkaaf area in southwest Pakistan arrived in the provincial capital Quetta early Thursday morning to reunite with their families waiting at the railway station, officials said.
The rescued passengers, traveling in special trains, reached Quetta, 140 kilometers (87 miles) away from the scene of the attack, to reunite with their families.
“A total of 295 passengers have reached Quetta Railway Station in different phases to reunite with the families who were waiting for them,” Shakeel Ahmed, an official at the Quetta railway control told EFE on Thursday.
The official said that all of the passengers have left for their native towns. He added that some of the passengers directly went to their homes rather than going back to Quetta.
“The last group of 47 passengers reached Quetta at around 5:30 in the morning,” the official said.
On Tuesday, militants belonging to the separatist Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) bombed Jaffar Express, traveling from the southwestern Balochistan province to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, when it crossed a tunnel in the mountainous Bolan range.
The militants took control of the train and held 440 passengers hostage including women, children and elderly, using them as human shields.
Officials had said earlier that over 100 of them were security personnel from the Frontier Corps, army and the police.
In a statement late Wednesday, the army’s Inter-Servies Public Relations (ISPR) said that security forces had taken back control of the train after killing all 33 militants present at the scene.
However, before the operation began, the militants had already killed 21 passengers, according to the Pakistani military’s media wing.
Four security personnel also lost their lives during the standoff. The identity of the 21 killed is not yet known.
Although the ISPR statement did not mention if anyone was injured, local officials confirmed that at least 15 injured passengers were admitted at the Trauma Center in Quetta for treatment.
“At the moment, 15 injured are being treated at the Quetta trauma center,” an official told EFE on condition of anonymity.
The official disclosed that no dead body had reached Quetta so far. A railway official had said earlier that 194 empty coffins had reached Mashkaaf, where the train was hijacked by the militants.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is scheduled to visit Quetta on Thursday to express solidarity with the people of the province and to take stock of the security situation, his office said in a statement late Wednesday.
“The prime minister will also chair a meeting to review the law-and-order situation,” the statement added.
Sharif is expected to announce the future course of action after the tragic train hijacking incident, the first of its kind in the history of the country. EFE
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