Jaffar Express attacked in Pakistan's Balochistan

Islamabad, Sep 24 (PTI) At least a dozen-odd people, including women and children, were injured in a bombing attack on Jafar Express in the Balochistan province of Pakistan.

The Quetta-bound Jaffar Express was targeted in the Spizend area of Mastung on Tuesday, latest in a series of attacks that have targetted this train since March this year.

According to railway officials, six bogies of the train coming from Peshawar derailed after the blast and one overturned, injuring several of the passengers in that carriage in the evening, reported Dawn.

It was the second blast in the same area within 10 hours.

Earlier in the morning, an explosion had occurred near the main track linking Balochistan to the rest of the country, just as the Peshawar-bound Jaffar Express was preparing to leave Quetta Railway Station.

The train was briefly halted but allowed to continue after security clearance, as the track was not damaged.

However, in the evening, an explosive device planted on the track detonated when the Quetta-bound train was passing through the Spizend area, police officials said.

“Six bogies of the Jaffar Express derailed after the blast and one of them overturned,” a senior Pakistan Railways official told Dawn, adding that five passengers sustained injuries.

Security forces and police rushed to the site soon after the blast and shifted the injured to a nearby health facility.

The railway officials confirmed 270 passengers were on board at the time of the blast. They said the damaged part of the track would be repaired after security clearance on Wednesday, during which train service would remain suspended.

The Jafar Express, which runs between Quetta and Peshawar, has been repeatedly targeted in recent months with the attack in March being the worst.

On August 10, four people were injured when an improvised explosive device derailed six coaches of the Peshawar-bound Jafar Express in the Mastung district.

On August 7, the train narrowly escaped a disaster near Balochistan’s Sibi railway station, where a bomb planted near the track exploded just after the passenger train had passed.

In another incident, on August 4, gunmen fired five bullets at its pilot engine near Kolpur. The separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the latter attack.

In June, a remotely controlled explosive device fitted to rail tracks exploded, causing four bogies of the Jaffar Express to derail in Jacobabad.

On March 11, the Jaffar Express was hijacked while traveling from Quetta to Peshawar in the Bolan area, resulting in the deaths of 21 passengers and four security personnel. The security forces in a targeted operation killed 33 terrorists involved in attacking the train.

It is believed that ethnic Baloch terrorist groups carry out such attacks.

A July 28 derailment of the same train in Sindh province’s Sukkur was initially attributed to an explosion but the Ministry of Railways later said it was due to a technical fault. PTI SH NPK NPK