Several passengers were injured when six carriages of the Jaffar Express derailed in Mastung’s Dasht area of restive Balochistan province on September 23 following an explosion on the railway track, according to a Geo TV report. The railway authorities said that one carriage overturned while two others came off the track. At the time of the incident, the train was travelling from Peshawar to Quetta. It bears mention here that this train service is very vital for maintaining connectivity on this section and has been subjected to repeated attacks by cadres of Baloch rebels, mostly Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA).
Muhammad Kashif, Pakistan Railways’ Quetta division public relations officer, told Dawn newspaper that a railway track was blown up with explosives in the town of Spezand, derailing six bogies. “The train was coming from Peshawar to Quetta and there were 270 passengers on board,” he said, adding that a relief train was dispatched from Quetta after the explosion, while a team of officers, rescue trucks and private cranes was also rushed to the spot for relief operations.
Those involved in the rescue sources said 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. However, they did not specify the exact number, and it is likely to be known much later.
This is not the first time the train service has been attacked. In June, five bogies of Jaffar Express had derailed after a blast took place on a railway track near Jacobabad. The train was en route from Peshawar to Quetta just as has happened in Tuesday’s incident.
The explosion has caused damage to the railway line, disrupting train services in the area. So far, no fatalities have been reported though some passengers have suffered serious injuries.
On March 11 this year, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a banned organisation fighting for an independent Balochistan blew up train tracks and assaulted the Jaffar Express. In this sensational attack, they had taken over 440 passengers hostage in a day-long stand-off with security services in a remote mountain pass in the Bolan district.
The military, after clearing the train and rescuing hostages, claimed to have killed 33 attackers. Before the operation began, terrorists had martyred 26 passengers, while four security personnel were martyred during the operation, according to official figures. However, a BLA spokesman had claimed that the security forces had suffered a large of casualties.
A couple of days ago, the mastermind of the attack and operational commander of the BLA was killed in Afghanistan, according to some security personnel. 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 some citizens working for intelligence agencies and 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),” these security sources told a Geo TV reporter.
A surge in terrorist activities has been witnessed in recent days by Fitna al-Khawarij terrorists in Pakistan. They are sheltering on Afghan soil and are funded and sponsored by India’s RAW (Research and Analysis Wing), Pakistani security agencies claimed.
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.
Balochistan Health Department and Quetta Civil Hospital spokesperson Dr Waseem Baig told Dawn newspaper: “Three people were injured in the blast and have been shifted to the Civil Hospital Trauma Centre, while an injured child has been taken to Combined Military Hospital.”
The railway PRO has said the work of repairing the railway track and removing the bogies would begin in daylight on Wednesday. He said that an an investigation into the incident has been launched.
A similar incident occurred last month when six bogies were derailed near the same location.
That incident had come just three days after a Quetta-bound Jaffar Express narrowly escaped a disaster in Balochistan’s Sibi, where a bomb planted near the track exploded just after the passenger train passed.
In another near-miss incident on July 24, a powerful explosion ripped through the Quetta-Sibi rail section, damaging a bogie of the Bolan Mail.
A July 28 derailment of the Jaffar Express train in Sindh’s Sukkur was initially attributed to an explosion — even by government-run media — but the Ministry of Railways later said a technical fault was the cause.
