QUETTA/KARACHI: Pakistani security officials said on Tuesday 155 hostages had been freed after separatist militants hijacked a train carrying more than 400 passengers in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, with a gunbattle raging on hours after the assault began.
A low-level separatist insurgency in Balochistan is one of the chronic security problems undermining stability in Pakistan. The separatists accuse the government of stripping the province’s natural resources and leaving its people mired in poverty. They say security forces routinely abduct, torture and execute ethnic Baloch, accusations echoed by human rights campaigners. Government officials and security forces strongly deny violating human rights and say they are uplifting the province through development projects, including multi-billion-dollar schemes funded by China. Insurgents in the province also target civilians, especially Pakistanis from other ethnic groups who have settled in Balochistan.

The latest attack on the Quetta-Peshawar bound Jaffar Express occurred in Mushkaaf, an area in the mountainous Bolan range of Balochistan. The Baloch Liberation Army, the most prominent among separatist outfits operating in the province, accepted responsibility in a statement sent to the media and said it was holding 214 people hostage.
The Jaffar Express train was hijacked while it was en route to the northwestern city of Peshawar from the provincial capital of Quetta, carrying 425 passengers, according to Muhammad Kashif, a spokesman for Pakistan Railways Quetta Division.

“Security forces have safely rescued 104 passengers from the terrorists,” a security official with direct knowledge of the matter said, requesting anonymity and adding that the released people included 58 men, 31 women and 115 children.
He said troops had surrounded the militants and an exchange of fire was ongoing, with 16 insurgents killed.
“The complex operation is being carried out with utmost caution due to the use of women and children as shields and the difficult terrain,” the official added.

“RULES OF WAR”
Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province by area, covering 347,190 square kilometers and constituting 44 percent of the country’s total landmass. However, the remote province bordering Afghanistan and Iran is the country’s most backward region in terms of nearly all social and economic indicators. There are no Internet and mobile services in nearly 60 percent of the province, according to independent monitors, and areas which have such services often see shutdowns and months-long disruptions due to security reasons.
Speaking to Arab News, Imran Hayat, the divisional superintendent of Pakistan Railways in Quetta, said the department was unable to gather too many details of the attack or communicate with staff aboard the train as militants had carried out the assault in a “no-signal zone.”
“We haven’t retrieved a single body or injured from the area yet due to the communication blackout,” he said.

The BLA said it had blown up the railway track and taken control of the train.
“Under the rules of war, these 214 hostages are considered prisoners of war and BLA is prepared for a prisoner exchange,” the group said. “The occupying state of Pakistan is given 48 hours to immediately and unconditionally release Baloch political prisoners, forcibly disappeared persons and national resistance activists.”

The group warned that the hostages included military, paramilitary, police and intelligence officers, who would be killed if the BLA’s demands were not met within the stipulated period “or if the occupying state attempts any military action during this time.”
The separatists have also recently attacked projects being developed as part of the $65-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), part of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, in Balochistan. The program is also developing a deep-water port close to the new $200-million airport in Gwadar, a joint venture between Pakistan, Oman and China.

President Donald Trump’s administration still plans to fire all workers at the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, effectively neutralizing it, according to witness testimony delivered Tuesday.
The testimony runs counter to CFPB court filings, according to which the agency would continue to exist only in a “streamlined” form, as a judge has temporarily blocked it from continuing with mass dismissals.
However a witness, an agency official who testified Tuesday in a Washington courtroom under a pseudonym for fear of retaliation, said she was privy to conversations with the Office of Personnel Management this month at which officials were still discussing firing all agency workers.
“On the 4th, it was mostly about a cost estimate for the final phase” for firing any remaining workers after as many as 1,200 workers are dismissed, said the witness.
“This was last Tuesday?” asked Deepak Gupta, a lawyer representing an employee union, consumer advocates and others challenging the administration’s moves against the CFPB.
“Yes,” the witness answered, adding that she was unaware of any change in plans to wind down the CFPB entirely.
She appeared under the pseudonym “Alex Doe” and explained that she feared retaliation for providing her testimony.
Representatives for the CFPB and OPM did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Unlike the government position taken in court papers, Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk have said the consumer financial watchdog should be eliminated. Trump has accused the agency of politicized enforcement and the CFPB has been reviled by conservatives and the financial services industry, which have accused it of overreach and overzealous enforcement actions.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs have said scrapping the agency in this manner defies the powers of Congress, which created the agency in 2010 and would be the sole authority able to abolish it.
Justice Department lawyers argue that Trump officials have acted within their authority and are working to comply with relevant laws.
The witness also said officials with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency had pressured CFPB officials in mid-February to proceed more quickly in processing bulk notices of employee firings as a court hearing approached at which a judge could order a halt to the firings.
Lawyers representing the National Treasury Employees Union and others are seeking a court order directing the Trump administration to undo the actions it has taken so far in dismissing about 200 workers, placing remaining staff on leave and canceling service contracts, among other measures. A judge has yet to rule on the matter after two days of testimony.