Militants wearing suicide vests are seated among passengers held hostage in a train hijack in southwest Pakistan, the government said on Wednesday, hampering rescue efforts as a deadline nears for when the attackers said they would start to kill people.
Dozens of separatist Balochi militants blew up a railway track and lobbed rockets on Tuesday at the Jaffar Express, carrying more than 400 passengers, a security official said. So far, 190 of them have been rescued, government officials said.
Hundreds of troops and teams in helicopters have been drafted into the effort to rescue the hostages in the remote mountainous area where the train was stopped. The train driver and several others have already been killed, officials say.
But Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) militants, with bombs strapped to their bodies, were sitting next to passengers, junior interior minister Talal Chaudhry told Geo television.
"They are wearing suicide vests and ... that's making the rescue difficult," he said.
"The operation is being conducted very carefully so that no harm is inflicted to the hostages, the women and children."
He said about 70 to 80 attackers had hijacked the train.
The group has threatened to start executing hostages unless authorities meet its 48-hour deadline for the release of Baloch political prisoners, activists, and missing people it says were abducted by the military. The group said half that time had now elapsed.
The BLA is the largest of several ethnic armed groups battling the government in Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.
In what was previously a low-level insurgency, the militants have in recent months stepped up their activities using new tactics to inflict high death and injury tolls and target Pakistan's military.
Baloch militant groups say they have been fighting for decades for a larger share in the regional wealth of mines and minerals denied by the central government.
There was no official word on how many remain in the captivity of the BLA, which claimed responsibility for the attack and said on Tuesday that it was holding 214 hostages.
FAMILIES URGE ACTION
Images in a video provided by the militants show the train travelling through a barren pass when an explosion on the track sends up plumes of black smoke as the locomotive approaches, while a group of militants watches from a hill above.
The video, posted on messaging app Telegram by the group's spokesperson, then cuts to images of people being pulled off the train halted outside a tunnel. Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.
A security source told Reuters there were 425 people on the train when it was attacked on its way to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province from Balochistan's capital of Quetta.
After seizing control of the train, the insurgents began pulling passengers off and checking their identification, the source added.
"They were looking for soldiers and security personnel," the official said, estimating that at least 11 people, including paramilitary troops, had been killed.
The security source said the military operation had killed 30 of the group's fighters. The previous day, the BLA denied any deaths among its members.
More than 50 of those rescued arrived in Quetta on Wednesday, to be reunited with distraught relatives.
A woman, who said her son was among the passengers still held hostage, confronted provincial minister Mir Zahoor Buledi when he visited the freed passengers.
"Please bring my child back," she said. "Why didn't you stop the trains if they were not safe? If the train was never going to reach its destination, why let it depart?"
Buledi told reporters the government was working to beef up security in the region.
A Reuters journalist saw nearly 100 empty coffins at Quetta railway station, where more of those aboard the Jaffar Express were expected to arrive.
Pakistan Railways has suspended services from the provinces of Punjab and Sindh to Balochistan until security agencies confirm the area is safe, media said on Wednesday.
