18 security officials among passengers martyred in train tragedy: ISPR

RAWALPINDI: Director General Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry Friday confirmed that the number of passengers martyred in the Jaffar Express train tragedy had risen from 21 to 26, including 18 security personnel from the army and the FC, three officials from Pakistan Railways and other departments and five civilians.

He was addressing a press conference here along with Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti.

There are also five operational causalities, he said and hinted that the death toll might rise further, as 37 out of 354 passengers were injured.

Gen Sharif said India was the main sponsor of terrorism in Balochistan and the Jaffar Express tragedy was also the continuation of the same policy.

“We understand that the main sponsor of the latest attack in Balochistan and other terrorist incidents that took place in the past is our eastern neighbor,” he said.

He said Jaffar Express tragedy was continuity of India’s policy to sponsor terrorism in Pakistan.

“This incident is continuity of the same policy, the same sponsorship from where it was engineered and from where it was being pushed,” he said.

On the occasion, the confessional statement of Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, in which he admitted to planning terror attacks in Balochistan and engaging Baloch sub-nationalists, was displayed.

Gen Sharif said Afghanistan had been providing space to the regional and international terrorist organizations.

“We have evidences that terrorists are recruited in Afghanistan, weapons are provided from there and how the terror attacks are planned and executed,” he said.

He said fake videos were created by using artificial intelligence (AI) to spread malicious propaganda regarding Jaffar Express attack on the social media platforms saying they used fake videos to exaggerate the situation.

“An activity was underway in Balochistan and the other activity was being run by the Indian media with fake and old videos and photos,” he said.

General Sharif told a questioner that attack on the Jaffar Expressway should not be categorized as an intelligence failure. He said many terrorist acts were foiled due to intelligence reports adding that intelligence agencies were working day and night in Balochistan and other parts of the country to foil the designs of terrorists.

The ISPR director general said the terrorists stopped the train through an IED blast in a hilly terrain where accessibility was difficult. Meanwhile, a media warfare led by the Indian media began supporting the terrorists.

He said the terrorists were in different groups, adding that one of the groups kept the women and children inside the train, while the rest of the passengers were brought outside the train and divided into groups.

In a bid to create a “false impression” of humanitarian values, the militants released a group of hostages in the evening, he added. However, some of the hostages managed to escape when the security forces engaged the terrorists.

He said the terrorists were in contact with their handlers in Afghanistan.

“From the terrorists’ communication, we came to know that there were suicide bombers among them. The terrorists have no ideology or religion and segregated hostages on ethnic basis. All terrorists were eliminated during a successful and complex operation within 36 hours,” he said, adding that terrorists could not harm anyone during the final clearance operation.

“In the history of hijacking of trains, it was the most successful and complex operation in which the hostages were recovered without harm,” he said.

He counted three main reasons including the nexus between the illegal and criminal mafia including smugglers, drug mafia and counterfeit money, weapons left over by the forces in Afghanistan and required implementation on the National Action Plan saying they were taking kinetic part of the plan.

He said following the train attack, the rules of game were now changed.

“We will take on terrorists, their abettors and facilitators inside and outside the country,” he said.

Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said the state had evidences that more terror attacks had been planned in Balochistan and other parts of the country.

He recalled that in the past, the separatist groups in Balochistan had developed differences in the past but it was RAW which reunited them again.