Woman killed, seven persons injured in Pakistan train blast
Islamabad, Feb 16 (EFE).- A woman was killed and seven other people were wounded in an explosion inside a train in Pakistan on Thursday, said a railway official.
The nature of the explosion was not immediately known, even as the authorities ascertained if it was an act of terror or an accident.
Pakistan Railways spokesperson Babar Raza said the Jaffar Express train was en route from Balochistan’s Quetta to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province when an explosion occurred near Punjab province’s Chichawatni city.
“The blast occurred in bogie number four of economy class near the wash room at 7.10 in the morning,” Raza said.
“One woman who belonged to Faisalabad was killed while seven other passengers were wounded.”
The spokesperson said expert teams of the Counter-Terrorism Department and Punjab Forensic Science Agency were at the site to collect evidence and ascertain the nature of the blast.
“It is still unclear if the blast was of a cylinder one or some explosives were planted,” he said.
In January, at least eight people were injured as a remote-controlled bomb blast derailed the same Jaffar Express in the Bolan district of volatile Balochistan province.
The banned Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for that bombing.
The latest incident comes as Pakistan witnesses a surge in violence.
Balochistan province has battled decades of insurgency against what rebels allege is the unfair exploitation of resources in the mineral-rich region.
The region borders Afghanistan to the north and Iran to the west. It has a long coastline on the Arabian Sea. It is home to Pakistan’s largest natural gas field.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) usually claims attacks on security forces. It is among the most prominent separatist groups in the region.
Outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or the Pakistani Taliban, has also increased its violent campaign across the country, mainly in the KPK province bordering Afghanistan, where their ideological brothers Afghan Taliban are in power.
The TTP is an umbrella group of several armed organizations formed in 2007 to establish an Islamic state in Pakistan.
Since its inception, the group has carried out a brutal campaign of attacks across the country and killed thousands of people, including an assassination attempt in 2012 on Nobel peace-winning activist Malala Yousafzai.
Pakistani security forces have begun small-scale operations mainly in the troubled Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) provinces. EFE
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