QUETTA – Armed militants took more than 450 train passengers hostage and wounded the train driver in an attack yesterday in Pakistan’s volatile southwestern Balochistan province, officials said.
In a statement claiming the assault, the Baloch liberation Army (BLA) said gunmen bombed the railway track and took control of the train in remote Sibi district.

“Over 450 passengers onboard are being held hostage by gunmen,” Muhammad Kashif, a senior railway government official in Quetta, the capital of the province, told AFP.
A senior police official from the area bordering Sibi, who asked not be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said “the train remains stuck just before a tunnel surrounded by mountains”.

The area where the train is halted is a mountainous region, making it easier for militants to have hideouts and plan attacks.
An emergency has been imposed in the surrounding hospitals, according to a senior police official. 

– Nampa/AFP