Terror in Mastung: Bomb attack on train kills four
Six militants killed in a gunfight with FC troops in Kalat
Security officials stand next to a compartment of the train hit by an IED blast in Mastung. PHOTO: AFP
QUETTA:
Four people were killed and another eight injured when a awalpindi-bound passenger train hit a home-made bomb planted on a railway track in Mastung district of Balochistan Sunday morning.
An improvised explosive device (IED) was remotely detonated when Jaffar Express chugged into Dasht tehsil of Mastung, 30 kilometres south of Quetta.
Railways Divisional Superintendent Faiz Muhammad Bugti said the victims, all hailing from Quetta, were travelling to Punjab for holidays. “The four deceased were railway employees,” he added.
A Balochistan Levies official said the IED was planted on the railway track in Isplinji area near Dasht. “One of the train carriages was also damaged.”
Bugti said railway officials had searched the track, as they usually do before passenger trains pass, but “the explosives were planted a few minutes before the train chugged into Dasht”. Around eight kilograms of explosives were used in the device, he added. “The dead men, all class-4 employees of the Pakistan Railways, were travelling in the carriage that was targeted.”
Medics at the Provincial Sandeman Hospital confirmed they had received four bodies and eight injured. Three of the deceased were identified as Muhammad Nawaz, Mustafa Ahmed and Abdul Salam. According to witnesses, a suspected militant who had planted the IED was also injured in the blast as he was seen fleeing the scene.
The Jaffar Express resumed its journey to Rawalpindi after an hour’s delay caused by the deadly blast. Investigators criticised the almost immediate departure of the train as it often creates hurdles in investigations.
This is not the first time that the Jaffar Express has come under attack. Most recently, on June 6, the train was returning to Quetta when an explosion derailed four of its carriages near the Jacobabad district jail, leaving eight people injured.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but Baloch separatists demanding greater autonomy have been waging an insurgency for years and the province is also riven by sectarian strife and Islamist violence.
Elsewhere in the troubled province, six militants were killed in a gunfight with paramilitary troops in the Johan area of Kalat district on Sunday.
Acting on a tip-off, Frontier Corps troops conducted a raid and pinned down some militants in a house, according to a spokesperson for the paramilitary force. The militants were asked to turn themselves in. Instead the militants opened fire on the FC troops, triggering a gunfight.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 2nd, 2015.
Four people were killed and another eight injured when a awalpindi-bound passenger train hit a home-made bomb planted on a railway track in Mastung district of Balochistan Sunday morning.
An improvised explosive device (IED) was remotely detonated when Jaffar Express chugged into Dasht tehsil of Mastung, 30 kilometres south of Quetta.
Railways Divisional Superintendent Faiz Muhammad Bugti said the victims, all hailing from Quetta, were travelling to Punjab for holidays. “The four deceased were railway employees,” he added.
A Balochistan Levies official said the IED was planted on the railway track in Isplinji area near Dasht. “One of the train carriages was also damaged.”
Bugti said railway officials had searched the track, as they usually do before passenger trains pass, but “the explosives were planted a few minutes before the train chugged into Dasht”. Around eight kilograms of explosives were used in the device, he added. “The dead men, all class-4 employees of the Pakistan Railways, were travelling in the carriage that was targeted.”
Medics at the Provincial Sandeman Hospital confirmed they had received four bodies and eight injured. Three of the deceased were identified as Muhammad Nawaz, Mustafa Ahmed and Abdul Salam. According to witnesses, a suspected militant who had planted the IED was also injured in the blast as he was seen fleeing the scene.
The Jaffar Express resumed its journey to Rawalpindi after an hour’s delay caused by the deadly blast. Investigators criticised the almost immediate departure of the train as it often creates hurdles in investigations.
This is not the first time that the Jaffar Express has come under attack. Most recently, on June 6, the train was returning to Quetta when an explosion derailed four of its carriages near the Jacobabad district jail, leaving eight people injured.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but Baloch separatists demanding greater autonomy have been waging an insurgency for years and the province is also riven by sectarian strife and Islamist violence.
Elsewhere in the troubled province, six militants were killed in a gunfight with paramilitary troops in the Johan area of Kalat district on Sunday.
Acting on a tip-off, Frontier Corps troops conducted a raid and pinned down some militants in a house, according to a spokesperson for the paramilitary force. The militants were asked to turn themselves in. Instead the militants opened fire on the FC troops, triggering a gunfight.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 2nd, 2015.