'Get off the train and don’t look back'

MACH: Scores of traumatized passengers managed to reach the Mach Railway Station on foot after terrorists, who had taken people hostage on the Jaffar Express in Balochistan’s Bolan district, let them get off the train on Tuesday.

Bashir, a visibly shocked middle-aged man, told reporters at the railway station that he, along with his wife and their two children, was going to Bahawalpur from Quetta when the Peshawar-bound train came under attack.

“Just 15 to 20 minutes or half an hour after the train had pulled out of the Quetta station, the incident happened,” he said. “We lay on the floor of our bogie as soon we heard firing and blasts outside. People were crying and screaming out of fear for their lives.”

He said: “I got down with my family when the terrorists standing outside told us to get off the train. We had to follow their orders, for they could have come inside and killed us.”

Bahsir said the terrorists told them “to leave and not look back” as they took other passengers hostage. He said he didn’t know how many passengers were taken hostage.

An elderly passenger said: “We were sleeping. When they got frustrated, they asked us to vacate the bogies so they could burn them. We told our children to get off, as we were dead either way. Then we got off.” When asked how they got away, the man said they were let go. “They told us to leave, and find our own way. We kept walking until we fell into a canal. It was just water and rocks all the way. We kept walking for four hours until we reached Paneer.” When asked if women and children were injured there, the man said he was unaware of it.