The suicide bombers are sitting next to some of the passenger scores taken hostage after the militants kidnapped a train in the southwest of Pakistan, which complicates the rescue efforts, security sources told the Reuters news agency.
Around 50 separatist insurgents exploded on Tuesday by a railway and launched rockets in the Jaffar Express, which had more than 400 people on board, a security official said.
Hundreds of troops and teams in helicopters have mounted an operation to rescue hostages in the remote mountainous area where the train has stopped.
The Government said that until now it has rescued 155 passengers.
There was no official word about how many people remained in the captivity of the militants.
How the separatist militants kidnapped the train
The Baloch Liberation Army (Bla), an ethnic armed group that attributed the responsibility of the attack, said Tuesday that it had 214 people as hostages.
“The people were attacked … the passengers were injured and some passengers died,” said Muhammad Ashraf, who was on the train.
The train was caught in a tunnel and the driver was killed after suffering serious injuries, police officers and railroads said.
The Bla has threatened to start executing hostages unless Baloch’s political prisoners, the missing activists and people who, they said, had been kidnapped by the military were released in 48 hours.
The group shared a message from one of its combatants on the train that asked people in Baluchistan to join their fight against the Pakistani state.
Pakistani forces have rescued 155 passengers from Jaffar Express. Fountain: EPA / Fayyaz Ahmed
“The comrades are melting you from blood for this homeland,” said the man in the message, published on Telegram.
A security source told Reuters that there were 425 passengers on the train when he was attacked on his way from Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, to Peshawar in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The security source said that after taking control of the train, the insurgents began to take out the passengers and verify their identification.
“They were looking for soldiers and security personnel,” said the official, adding that at least 11 people, including paramilitary troops, had been killed so far.
Bla militants with bombs tied to their bodies were sitting next to other passengers, the source said.
The soldiers and the police have been deployed in a railway station near where a train was kidnapped. Fountain: AP / AP
Bla is the largest of several ethnic armed groups that fight against the Pakistan government in the province rich in Baluchistan minerals, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.
The security source on Wednesday said that 27 Bla fighters had been killed so far in the military operation.
On Tuesday, the Bla denied that some of its members were killed.
More than 50 of those rescued so far were taken to Quetta on Wednesday morning, escorted by the security forces, where their relatives were waiting for them.
Pakistan Railways has suspended all the operations of the Punjab and Sindh provinces to Baluchistan until security agencies confirm that the area is safe, local media reported Wednesday.
Buledi told reporters that the government was working to improve the security situation in the region.
