At least four people were injured when a blast derailed six bogies of the Jaffar Express near Spezand town at Mastung district of Balochistan in Pakistan. Travelling from Peshawar to Quetta with 270 passengers on board, the train was struck by explosives planted on the railway track, according to officials.
Dr Waseem Baig, spokesperson for the Balochistan Health Department and Quetta Civil Hospital, told Dawn.com: “Three people were injured in the blast and have been shifted to the Civil Hospital Trauma Centre, while an injured child has been taken to Combined Military Hospital.”
Muhammad Kashif, public relations officer for Pakistan Railways’ Quetta division, said explosives had blown up a section of the railway track at Spezand.
“The train was coming from Peshawar to Quetta and there were 270 passengers on board,” he said, adding that a relief train had been dispatched from Quetta, and a team of officers, rescue trucks and private cranes were rushed to the site for immediate relief operations.
Work to repair the railway track and remove the derailed bogies is set to begin in daylight tomorrow. An official investigation into the incident has already been launched, while security forces cordoned off the area and initiated a search operation.
Balochistan has seen a surge in attacks on its transport infrastructure in recent years. This blast echoes a pattern. Last month, six bogies of the Jaffar Express were derailed near the same location. Three days prior, another Quetta-bound Jaffar Express narrowly escaped disaster in Sibi when a bomb exploded just after the train had passed.
Other near-miss incidents this year included a July 24 explosion on the Quetta-Sibi rail section, which damaged a bogie of the Bolan Mail. On July 28, a derailment of the Jaffar Express in Sindh’s Sukkur was initially reported as an explosion, though the Ministry of Railways later confirmed it was due to a technical fault.
In June, a remotely controlled explosive device derailed four bogies of the Jaffar Express in Jacobabad, though no injuries were reported.
In April, the 3UP train from Karachi to Quetta was stopped at Jacobabad railway station due to security concerns. Train services between Quetta and the rest of the country were restored on March 27 after suspension following the unprecedented hijacking of the Peshawar-bound Jaffar Express earlier in March.
That hijacking, which involved 33 terrorists near Sibi, left 21 passengers and four security personnel dead, before all attackers were neutralised in a two-day operation.
