Armed men took 35 passengers hostage in a train attack in southwest Pakistan, while nearly 350 others are believed to be safe, local police said Tuesday.
The Baloch Liberation Army claimed to have seized 182 hostages, including military personnel, threatening to kill them if security forces did not withdraw.
The militants wounded the driver as they took control of the train in a remote, mountainous area of Balochistan province which borders Afghanistan and Iran.
"Passengers include women and children," Muhammad Kashif, a senior railway government official in Quetta, the capital of the province, told AFP.
In a statement, BLA said gunmen bombed the railway track before storming aboard the train.
"The militants swiftly took control of the train and have taken all passengers hostage," said the statement released to media.
The group "warned of severe consequences" if an attempt is made to rescue the hostages.
Pakistani sources who spoke to the media on condition of anonymity said an operation "to eliminate the terrorists is ongoing with extreme caution due to the difficult terrain," adding that women and children are "being used as human shields."
The incident happened around 1:00 p.m. (0800 GMT) in rural Sibi district, near a city station where it had been due to stop.
"A passenger train called the Jaffar Express was stopped by armed militants," said a senior government official in Sibi, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The train had left Quetta for Peshawar, in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – a more than 30-hour journey – at around 9:00 a.m.
A senior police official from the area bordering Sibi, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said that "the train remains stuck just before a tunnel surrounded by mountains."
An emergency has been imposed at hospitals in Sibi, according to a government official.
The area is a mountainous region making it easier for militants to have hideouts and plan attacks.
Security forces have been battling a decades-long insurgency in impoverished Balochistan, which terrorist groups claim is being exploited by outsiders, with wealth from its natural resources siphoned off with little benefit to the local population.
Violence has soared in the western border regions with Afghanistan, from north to south, since the Taliban took back power in 2021.
More than 1,600 people were killed in attacks in Pakistan in 2024 – the deadliest year in almost a decade – according to the Center for Research and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based analysis group.
BLA militants killed seven Punjabi travelers in February after they were ordered off a bus.
At least 39 people were killed in coordinated attacks last year that largely targeted ethnic Punjabis.
In November, the BLA claimed responsibility for a bombing at Quetta's main railway station that killed 26 people, including 14 soldiers.
