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LAHORE / SAHIWAL: An explosion ripped through Jaffar Express on Thursday morning near Chichawatni, killing a woman and injuring seven others, the police said.
The blast occurred inside the washroom of train’s coach No. 4 and was powerful enough to blow out its iron structure.
The train — a 39UP Jaffar Express, which travels from Quetta to Peshawar — was on the move when the blast went off.
The woman killed in the incident, 55-year-old Naziran Bibi, was travelling from Sadiqabad to Okara. She had to sit on the floor beside the washroom because seats were unavailable. Ms Naziran, a resident of Nowshera, died on the spot.
Rescue officials said the injured had been shifted to the district headquarters hospital in Chichawatni. Five of them, including two minor sisters, were in critical condition.
The injured passengers were identified as Eman Fatima Ali, 2; Noor Fatima, 6; Iram Bibi, 40; Imran Ali, 27; Safia Bibi, 35; and Aslam, 30. One wounded passenger could not be immediately identified.
“The nature of the explosive was being assessed through forensic evidence,” Rao Sardar Ali, inspector general of the Railway Police, told Dawn.
He said a team from the Counterterrorism Department (CTD) and the local police were investigating the incident with assistance from the Railway Police.
The militant group Balochistan Nationalist Army later claimed responsibility for the blast in a message published on social media.
The blast occurred at around 7am when the train reached Kassowal, a town in the Chichawatni tehsil, Railways officials said. Eyewitnesses said the train left Mian Channu and was moving towards the Chichawatni Railway Station at a relatively slow speed when the blast occurred.
An eyewitness told the media that a passenger pulled the emergency brake after hearing the blast, but the driver stopped the train after some four to five kilometres. Some passengers travelling in other coaches of the train also heard the blast.
Sahiwal Commissioner Shoaib Iqbal visited the blast site and condemned the incident. He said an investigation was underway to determine the cause of the blast.
Sahiwal’s district police officer said the evidence and statements of passengers were also collected in this regard.
On the other hand, the Pakistan Railways administration also constituted a three-member committee to investigate the incident and submit an initial report to the higher authorities within the next 24 hours.
A Railways spokesperson told Dawn the blast occurred at about 7:10am on Thursday. The affected railcar was later detached from the Peshawar-bound train, which was then despatched to its destination after a little over three hours, at 10:40am.
He said an initial investigation showed no evidence that the blast occurred because of a gas cylinder. However, a team constituted by the Punjab police inspector general was trying to determine the nature of the blast.
FIR lodged
The CTD lodged an FIR (No. 2/2023) on the statement of the train’s guard in charge, Zafar Iqbal. It was registered under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, read with Sections 3 and 4 of the Explosive Substances Act, 1908.
The FIR said the train departed from the Mian Channu Railway Station at 6:50am on Thursday and when it crossed Kassowal, the driver stopped the train.
“I, through wireless, asked the driver about the reason behind stopping. On this, driver Abdul Ghafoor told me that he received information on the phone from the PR control office that there was something wrong happened in the coaches. The control office also advised the driver to check the train,” Mr Iqbal explained in the FIR.
“Since an unknown terrorist organisation is creating fear among the passengers by exploding explosive material in the trains, the police should take action,” he said.