QUETTA: Train operations from the Quetta Railway Station were restored on Friday, over two weeks after they were suspended following a deadly hijacking by militants in which 31 soldiers, staff and civilians were killed in the southwestern Balochistan province.
The separatist Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the Mar. 11 attack on the Quetta-Peshawar Jaffar Express, during which they blew up train tracks and held passengers hostage in a day-long standoff with security services in a remote mountain pass.
MP Jamal Shah Kakar and Divisional Superintendent Pakistan Railways Imran Hayat inaugurated the train service in a televised ceremony. The train departed with 400 passengers from Quetta for Peshawar in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province under strict security measures.
The Jaffar Express had started services yesterday, Thursday.
“Although we don’t have enough strength of Railway Police Forces, many stations require fencing and other security equipment,” Railways Minister Hanif Abbasi told reporters earlier this week, admitting that railways facilities in the province faced security challenges.
“We are recruiting 500 soldiers in the Pakistan Railway Police and 70 percent of the recruitment would be for Balochistan,” the minister added. “We have planned new security strategies with the frontier corps and other law enforcing agencies.”
He also announced a special Eid train from Quetta Railway station with fool-proof security for passengers.
“We are very much optimistic about better security to the railway’s passengers in Balochistan,” Abbasi said.
“We have repaired all damaged carriages of the attacked Jaffar Express, and new rack of carriages would be included in the train operations from Balochistan.”
The BLA is the largest and strongest of several ethnic Baloch insurgent groups which have been fighting for decades to win independence for the mineral-rich province, home to major China-led projects including a port and gold and copper mines.
