QUETTA: Pakistan Railways on Friday resumed train service from Quetta to other parts of the country after an over month-long closure caused by an attack on a key bridge in the southwestern Balochistan province.
Built in 1887, the five-span bridge was the second such link constructed by the British Army at the Bolan Pass after reaching an agreement with the then Khan of Kalat, Meer Khuda-e-Dad Khan, to extend the railway network to Quetta and Chaman near the Afghan border.
The historic bridge was blown up on August 26, when dozens of armed militants from the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) launched a series of coordinated attacks across Balochistan, including shooting commuters on highways and carrying out suicide bombings in Lasbela, Musakhail, Kachi, Kalat and Mastung districts.
The attacks coincided with the 18th death anniversary of Baloch chieftain Nawab Akbar Bugti, who was killed in a military operation in 2006.
“Pakistan Railways restored the train service from Balochistan after 45 days of closure due to the terrorist attack on a key railway bridge in Kolpur,” Divisional Superintendent (DS) Quetta Kamran Hayat said while speaking to the media at the Quetta Railway Station on Friday.
“Strict security measures were already in place to maintain the security of the train and passengers, we don’t deal with security but separate security agencies are available and soldiers are deployed in the checkpoints established for train security in Balochistan.”
He said the Pakistan Railways had constructed the destroyed bridge in record time.
Earlier, the Quetta-Peshawar bound Jaffar Express departed from the station at 9 AM while the Quetta-Karachi bound Bolan Mail left an hour later at 10am.
Abdul Rehman, a passenger planning to travel on one the trains, lauded the restoration work and the resumption of the train service from Quetta.
“People faced hardships due to the suspension of the service because other intercity transportation means are usually quite costly for passengers,” he said, urging the railway department to restore other trains from Balochistan as well.
According to railway department estimates, train service suspension has caused around Rs40 million ($144,000) in revenue losses.
Balochistan has witnessed an uptick in violence by armed separatist groups in recent months, with militants blocking highways and attacking passengers, particularly those from Pakistan’s populous Punjab province.
The Baloch separatists blame the central government of exploiting the province’s vast mineral resources without benefiting its residents, a charge denied by the state which says it has launched several high-profile projects for the development of the region.
