An armed militant group has taken people hostage after it attacked a train carrying hundreds of passengers in Pakistan.
Separatist militant group the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed they had taken hundreds of people hostage, including Pakistan army members, in the attack.
Local police said the number of hostages was 35, while nearly 350 other passengers were believed to be safe.
"The BLA [The Baloch Liberation Army] further warns that if military intervention continues, all hostages will be executed," the group said in a statement.
"Civilian passengers, particularly women, children, the elderly, and Baloch citizens, have been released safely and given a secure route."
The BLA said gunmen bombed the railway track and took control of the train in remote Sibi district in Balochistan province.
[MAP]Security forces said an explosion had been heard near the tunnel and that they were exchanging fire with the militants in a mountainous area.
"Around 350 passengers, including women and children, are safe and a relief train will be reaching the area where the train was attacked," said a senior district police officer, Rana Dilawar.
"Security forces launched a massive operation," he said, adding that helicopters and special forces had been deployed.
The BLA, which seeks independence for Balochistan province bordering both Afghanistan and Iran, said it had killed 20 soldiers and shot down a drone.
There was no confirmation of that from Pakistani authorities.
'Beasts who fire on innocent passengers'
The train had left Quetta for Peshawar, in north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — a more than 30-hour journey — at around 9am local time.
An emergency had been imposed at the surrounding hospitals, according to a senior police official.
The Pakistan government said they would not make any concessions to "beasts who fire on innocent passengers", Minister Mohsin Naqvi said.
Security forces have been battling a decades-long insurgency in impoverished Balochistan, which militant groups claim is being exploited by outsiders, with wealth from its natural resources siphoned off with little benefit to the local population.
The United States and Pakistan have designated the BLA has a terrorist organisation.
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 travellers 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.
ABC/wires
