AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

At least 21 passengers were killed in last week’s hijacking of a train in Pakistan. A militant group claimed responsibility for blowing up the tracks and opening fire when the train was halfway through a tunnel, forcing it to halt. The train was carrying more than 400 people. Betsy Joles reports from Karachi.

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BETSY JOLES, BYLINE: Around 4:45 on Thursday morning, vans carrying survivors of the hijacking started pulling into the railway station in Quetta, the capital city of Balochistan. Inside the station, government officials recorded the names and seat numbers of around 80 survivors of the hijacking that took place 40 hours prior. They were the last group from the train to be evacuated. Bahadur Ali, a thin 24-year-old wearing a dusty sweatshirt and gray beanie, was one of them. He described the first moments of the attack on Tuesday afternoon.

BAHADUR ALI: (Through interpreter) They said if you don’t come out, then we’ll have to come inside. Some chose to stay inside. Those who rushed out in haste were shot. Many of them were shot.

JOLES: Ali was taking the train called the Jaffar Express from Quetta to his hometown in neighboring Punjab province. The hijacking happened in a remote mountain pass along the way. It resulted in a standoff with Pakistan security forces that left 33 militants dead. Ali says he stayed on the train until he was evacuated by security forces the next day.

ALI: (Through interpreter) The situation was terrible. Everyone was worried.

JOLES: The attack was carried out by the Balochistan Liberation Army, or BLA, a militant separatist group that seeks Balochistan’s independence from the rest of Pakistan. The BLA has been active since the early 2000s but has ramped up attacks in the past several years. They are now one of the most deadly insurgent groups in the region, according to Abdul Basit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

ABDUL BASIT: (Through interpreter) Anything which will be required in the tool kit of an insurgent group, they have all.

JOLES: He says increased recruitment from educated young people and tactics like suicide bombing picked up from other militant groups have made the BLA even harder for the Pakistani state to counter in this resourced-rich but impoverished part of the country.

BASIT: (Through interpreter) I would call it an inflection point in the Baloch insurgency because this is urban warfare, and this changes things.

JOLES: NPR reached out to the Pakistani military’s media wing for an interview. They declined but sent a link to comments by their Director General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry on a local TV station, Dunya News.

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AHMED SHARIF CHAUDHRY: This incident of Jaffar Express changes the rules of the game.

JOLES: Chaudhry says the ringleaders of the hijacking were operating from Afghanistan. Pakistan has been struggling to contain the rise of militant attacks in its border regions. On Friday, Chaudhry also accused India of sponsoring terrorism in Balochistan. Both the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Indian government denied these accusations.

SAMMI DEEN BALOCH: In Balochistan, the state has been failed to stop the Baloch separatists. And in the end, it is the local on-ground people who will pay the price.

JOLES: This is activist Sammi Deen Baloch. She says she fears this attack will lead to more heavy-handed tactics by Pakistan’s powerful military. She’s worried about extrajudicial killings and disappearances.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).

JOLES: On Friday, friends and family members gathered in the courtyard of a home in Quetta to pray. They were mourning the loss of Shamroz Khan, a 36-year-old constable in the Pakistan Railways Police who was killed during the hijacking. Standing outside the house was Khan’s colleague, Muhammed Riaz (ph).

MUHAMMED RIAZ: (Through interpreter) We are in grief now, and this grief will last throughout our lives.

JOLES: Survivors who were with Khan says he was shot in the throat when he stood up to fetch water for fellow passengers. Riaz says his friend was that kind of person.

RIAZ: (Through interpreter) Naturally, he got up to serve. He really believed in serving people.

JOLES: For now, Riaz and other railway police officials in Quetta won’t be returning to work because train services from there are suspended.

With Sadullah Akhtar in Quetta, for NPR News, I’m Betsy Joles in Karachi, Pakistan. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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