(13 Mar 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Quetta, Pakistan – 13 March 2025
1. Wide of people carrying a coffin
2. Various of funeral prayers
3. Various of people paying their respects beside the coffin
4. People carrying the coffin
5. SOUNDBITE (Urdu) Khair Muhammad, colleague of one of the attack victims:
"It has been very unfair, it has been very wrong. He (person killed in the attack) has small kids, he was a good person, he was my friend, he was my colleague. We are both employees of the Railway Department. He was a very good gentleman, he did not offend anyone. We are very sorry for him, you can see yourself how many people have participated in the prayers as he was a good person. I am going to miss him a lot."
6. Various of the funeral service
STORYLINE:
Hundreds of people attended funeral prayers on Thursday in Pakistan’s southwestern city of Quetta for victims of a recent train attack.
Also on Thursday, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met survivors of the attack and the commandos who rescued over 300 passengers from the insurgents, who killed 21 civilians and four troops.
The Baloch Liberation Army, an outlawed group behind multiple deadly attacks in recent months, claimed responsibility for the attack that began Tuesday and ended Wednesday when troops killed all 33 insurgents in an operation that the military said resulted in no further passenger deaths.
The train was heading from the Balochistan capital, Quetta, to the northern city of Peshawar when insurgents blew up the track, forcing nine coaches and the engine of the Jafer Express train to stop partially inside a tunnel.
The BLA regularly targets Pakistani security forces and has attacked trains, but had never been able to hijack any train in the past.
They have also attacked outsiders such as Chinese workers, thousands of whom are involved in multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects in Balochistan.
Oil and mineral-rich Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest and least populated province.
Members of the ethnic Baloch minority say they face discrimination and exploitation by the central government.
Authorities said arrangements were made to transport the bodies of victims to their hometowns and people who were wounded were receiving medical treatment.
In an overnight statement, the military said it had “confirmed intelligence” indicating that the assault was “orchestrated and directed by terrorist ring leaders operating from Afghanistan, who were in direct communication with the terrorists throughout the incident.”
In Kabul, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, rejected the Pakistani charges, saying: “We are saddened by the loss of life of innocents in the incident.”
However, the military in the statement urged the Afghan Taliban government to uphold its responsibilities and deny the use of its soil for terrorist activities against Pakistan.
Many survivors said the assailants opened fire on the windows of the train, entered the cars and killed or wounded people before taking them hostage.
Three soldiers who had been guarding the railroad track were among those killed, according to military spokesman Lt. Gen. Ahmad Sharif.
Separately, Pakistani security killed 10 militants after spotting them near a military facility in South Waziristan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, officials said.
Authorities said those killed were members of Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTT.
AP video shot by Muhammad Farooq
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