(11 Mar 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mach, Pakistan – 11 March 2025
++NIGHT SHOTS ++
++QUALITY AS INCOMING++
1. Pan from Pakistani security forces at Mach railway station to officials registering released passengers’ names
2. SOUNDBITE (Urdu) Bashir Yousaf, released train passenger:
“Everyone was crying and passengers were shouting, everyone was lying on the floor trying to save their lives. The sound of gunfire was coming from everywhere, then they (insurgents) told us to get down, some people weren’t getting down, I took my children and got down.”
3. Pan of released passengers sitting
4. SOUNDBITE (Urdu) Bashir Yousaf, released train passenger:
“After getting off we were told not to look back. I just kept walking without looking back to save my family’s lives, and I have to follow their advice.”
5. Pan of released passengers sitting
STORYLINE:
A man who was released from a train that was attacked by Pakistani insurgents described the chaotic scenes aboard when the militants launched their assault.
“Everyone was crying and passengers were shouting, everyone was lying on the floor trying to save their lives," Bashir Yousaf told the Associated Press.
"The sound of gunfire was coming from everywhere, then they told us to get down. Some people weren’t getting down, I took my children and got down,” he said.
The insurgents attacked the passenger train carrying several hundred people as it passed through a tunnel and claimed to have taken more than 100 hostages, though officials later said that at least 80 were rescued.
The fate of the rest wasn’t immediately known.
“After getting off we were told not to look back. I just kept walking without looking back to save my family’s lives, and I have to follow their advice,” said Yousaf.
Security officials said the attackers blew up the railroad track in the southwestern Balochistan province and exchanged fire with security guards aboard the train while using women and children as human shields.
The train was traveling from the provincial capital, Quetta, to the northern city of Peshawar when it came under attack in Bolan district, government spokesman Shahid Rind said, calling it “an act of terrorism."
He said that a rescue operation was underway, but access wasn’t easy because of the rugged, mountainous terrain.
The separatist Baloch Liberation Army, which has waged a years-long insurgency, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The group, which Pakistan and the United States have designated a terrorist organization, didn’t respond to calls.
But in a statement, BLA spokesman Junaid Baloch said that the group was ready to free passengers if the government agrees to release the group’s jailed militants.
Government officials weren’t immediately available to discuss the offer, but authorities have rejected such offers in the past.
Officials at Pakistan Railways said that the Jafar Express train was carrying an estimated 500 passengers, including women and children, and an unspecified number of security force members onboard.
Three security officials later told The Associated Press that troops rescued at least 80 passengers, including 26 women and 11 children, and 13 attackers had been killed.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media.
AP video by Khalil Ahmed
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