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Security forces were trying to rescue passengers a day after Baloch ethnic fighters seized a train carrying more than 400 people.
By Zia ur-Rehman
Reporting from Karachi, Pakistan
March 12, 2025Updated 8:51 a.m. ET
Pakistani security forces have been locked in a deadly standoff with armed militants for more than a day after the attackers seized a passenger train on Tuesday and held hundreds hostage.
The crisis is a dramatic escalation of a long-running separatist insurgency in the country’s southwest.
The Baloch Liberation Army, or B.L.A., a banned separatist group, seized the train, which was carrying more than 400 people, in a remote mountainous region.
The group claimed to be holding at least 214 people, including military personnel and civilian law enforcement officers. It demanded that the government release its imprisoned members within 48 hours, threatening to execute the hostages if the demand was not met.
By Wednesday morning, security authorities said that more than 150 hostages had been rescued, though the fate of the remaining passengers remained uncertain. Officials also reported that at least 27 militants had been killed in the continuing operation and that hostages were being held at three separate locations.
Muhammad Tallal Chaudry, the minister of state for interior, told the Geo TV news channel on Tuesday night that some hostages had been taken into the nearby mountains.
