At least four people were injured as a blast derailed six bogies of the Jaffar Express near Spezand town in the Dasht tehsil of Balochistan’s Mastung district, according to officials.
With a rise in terrorist attacks over the past few years, Balochistan has seen a series of incidents where militants blow up train tracks, targeting the province’s transport infrastructure.
Balochistan Health Department and Quetta Civil Hospital spokesperson Dr Waseem Baig 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, Pakistan Railways’ Quetta division public relations officer, told Dawn.com that a railway track was blown up with explosives in the town of Spezand, derailing six bogies.
“The train was coming from Peshawar to Quetta and there were 270 passengers on board,” he said, adding that a relief train was dispatched from Quetta after the explosion, while a team of officers, rescue trucks and private cranes was also rushed to the spot for relief operations.
He said the work of repairing the railway track and removing the bogies would begin in daylight tomorrow, while an investigation into the incident was launched.
Kashif said security forces had cordoned off the area and launched a search operation.
A similar incident occurred last month when six bogies were derailed near the same location.
That incident had come just three days after a Quetta-bound Jaffar Express narrowly escaped a disaster in Balochistan’s Sibi, where a bomb planted near the track exploded just after the passenger train passed.
In another near-miss incident on July 24, a powerful explosion ripped through the Quetta-Sibi rail section, damaging a bogie of the Bolan Mail.
A July 28 derailment of the Jaffar Express train in Sindh’s Sukkur was initially attributed to an explosion — even by government-run media — but the Ministry of Railways later said a technical fault was the cause.
In June, a powerful explosion of a remotely controlled explosive device fitted to rail tracks caused four bogies of the Jaffer Express to derail in Jacobabad. No one was hurt in the incident.
In April, the 3UP train heading from Karachi to Quetta was stopped at Jacobabad railway station due to security reasons.
Train services between Quetta and the rest of the country were restored on March 27, after they were suspended due to the unprecedented hijacking of the Peshawar-bound Jaffar Express earlier that month.
The train, travelling from Quetta to Peshawar and carrying 440 passengers, was hijacked near Balochistan’s Sibi area on March 11, resulting in the deaths of 21 passengers and four security personnel. “All 33 terrorists” were neutralised during the two-day clearance operation, the military said.
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