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India Today
19-05-2025
- Politics
- India Today
Baloch rebels release video of Jaffar Express hijack, counter Pak narrative
Two months after the Jaffar Express, a passenger train with 450 passengers onboard, was hijacked in Balochistan, the Baloch Liberation Army's media wing Hakkal released a detailed 35-minute video documenting its Baloch Liberation Army, a separatist group seeking Balochistan's secession from Pakistan, hijacked the Peshawar-bound Jaffar Express on March 11 after blowing up the railway tracks. Codenamed Darra-e-Bolan 2.0, the operation went on for two days when BLA fighters hijacked the train and held passengers hostage, sending waves of panic across Pakistan. After the operation, Pakistan claimed that the Baloch rebels faced heavy losses - a claim the video The video provides the first comprehensive visual account of the operation and reveals BLA fighters executing a coordinated clearance operation onboard the train. It shows the Baloch rebels planning the operation, receiving combat briefings and training before they stormed the Liberation Army media #Hakkal published video of the #JaffarExpress Hijack (Operation Darra-E-Bolan 2.0)#Balochistan Bahot | (@bahot_baluch) May 18, 2025The 30-minute video also shows how the Baloch rebels bombed the track and hijacked the train, holding over 200 Pakistani officials hostage for two also includes scenes of women, children, and the elderly being safely escorted away from the hijack site, contradicting narratives from Pakistan's military that labelled the incident as indiscriminate and video begins with a BLA fighter delivering a statement to underscore the motivations behind the attack, "Our struggle and war has come to a point where we are to take such critical decisions. Our young people are equipped to take such steps, for they are aware that except such decisions there are no other options left. A gun is needed to halt the gun. The sound that comes out of a gunshot may reach a point."advertisementHe added, "Baloch young men have taken the decision today to attack the enemy without any hesitation and care about their lives. Today if a son is leaving his father behind to sacrifice his life, so is a father leaving his son behind to sacrifice himself for the cause."The video then shows visuals of Fidayeen unit's training where a man explains the positioning for every rebel. The aim of the operation was to "Inflict the deadliest blow on the occupied Pakistani state" and "convey a clear and loud message to the occupying state that its officials would not last long in Balochistan."The group also showcased names, photographs, and farewell messages from its Fidayeen unit, the Majeed Brigade, indicating minimal casualties and asserting the strength of their the incident, the Pakistani Army said the siege ended after a 30-hour operation in which all the 33 rebels were killed. The Army claimed that 23 soldiers, three railway employees and five passengers had died in the attack. However, Balochistan Liberation Army, a separatist group seeking Balochistan's secession from Pakistan, claimed to have killed all 214 Pakistani military hostages taken in train hijack incident.
AFP
21-03-2025
- Politics
- AFP
Old Pakistan militant footage misrepresented as recent rail attack
"The Balochistan Liberation Army has hijacked the Jaffar Express in Pakistan. There were about 500 passengers on the train. ISI officers are also among these passengers. The video of the attack on the train has now surfaced," says a March 11, 2025 X post. The post features a clip of a train passing through the hills when it is rocked by a sudden blast. Image Screenshot of the false post taken March 13, 2025 The Pakistan army freed more than 340 train passengers the day after armed militants took some 450 hostage and wounded the driver in a March 11 attack in the volatile southwestern province of (archived link here, here). Attacks by a separatist group called the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), which accuses outsiders of plundering natural resources in the region bordering Afghanistan and Iran, have soared in recent years, mostly targeting security forces and ethnic groups from outside the . Similar posts have also surfaced on X and Facebook, but the video shared online was filmed in 2022 and depicts another militant attack in Balochistan. A reverse image search on found the same video circulated online almost years before the train hijack in Pakistan (archived link). The of an April 15, 2022 X post sharing the clip suggests the BLA released footage of an IED attack on a train carrying Frontier Corps, a of Pakistani paramilitary forces, near the city of in . A keyword search on messaging platform Telegram surfaced a press release the BLA forwarded January 18, 2022 from Hakkal, the group's official media channel. "The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) freedom fighters targeted the Jaffar Express train with an IED at Mushkaf area of Bolan near Sibi on Tuesday, as a result four bogies of Jaffar Express derailed," it says. Image Screenshot of the the 2022 BLA press release shared on Telegram Local media reported in January 2022 that at least five people were injured in an explosion near a railway track in the (archived link here, here). A keyword search surfaced an archived version of the video circulating online from Hakkal. The caption says: "Footage of Baloch Liberation Army attacks against the Pakistani Military in Balochistan". The logo appears in the top-right corner of the clip. Image Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and the 2022 Hakkal video Using Google Maps, AFP confirmed the video shows a blast in the Mushkaf area of (archived link). AFP has fact-checked other misinformation about Pakistan here.
