At least 25 bodies retrieved from Pakistan train siege

MACH, Pakistan – Pakistan’s military spokesman said on March 14 that the death toll in a train hijacking in the country had risen to 31, and he repeated accusations that neighbouring India and Afghanistan backed the militants who carried it out.

Security forces said they freed more than 340 train passengers in a two-day rescue operation that ended late on March 12, after a separatist group bombed a remote railway track in mountainous south-west Balochistan province and stormed a train with around 450 passengers on board.

The March 11 assault was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA),one of a number of separatist groups that accuse outsiders of plundering natural resources in Balochistan, near the borders with Afghanistan and Iran.

An army spokesman, Major-General Ahmad Sharif Chaudhry, told a press conference in Islamabad: “We have evidence that all the links to terrorism in Pakistan are traced back to Afghanistan.”

India was the main sponsor of the insurgents, he added.

Islamabad has long accused New Delhi and Kabul of providing money, resources, weapons and training grounds to the insurgents in Balochistan province.

Both countries have denied the accusations, saying that the insurgency is Islamabad’s internal problem.

Maj-Gen Chaudhry said a final count of the casualties included 18 soldiers, three railway employees and five civilians among the passengers who were held hostage by the insurgents for over 24 hours.

Another five soldiers lost their lives during the rescue operation that killed 33 of the insurgents, he said. A total of 354 hostages were rescued, he said.

A railway official in Balochistan said the bodies of 25 people were transported by train away from the hostage site to the nearby town of Mach on the morning of March 13.

The insurgents have said they still held hostages, but Maj-Gen Chaudhry said there