Abdullah Momand
March 13, 2025
Foreign Office Spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan addresses media in weekly press briefing. — DawnNewsTV
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday said that Pakistan had evidence of calls related to the Jaffar Express
hijacking incident being traced to Afghanistan but reaffirmed that it was India that was trying to “destabilise its neighboring countries”.
The hijack occurred on Tuesday
afternoon when the train, travelling from Quetta to Peshawar and carrying 440 passengers, was ambushed by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) terrorists. They opened fire on the train and held the passengers hostage, prompting the security forces to initiate an operation that lasted two days.
On Wednesday evening, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry
confirmed that the operation had been concluded, with 33 terrorists present at the site of the attack neutralised.
The ISPR chief also confirmed that 21 passengers and four Frontier Corps personnel lost their lives in the hijacking, but no hostages were harmed during the final rescue phase.
During a weekly press briefing today, Foreign Office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan was questioned whether Pakistan had a shift in stance from India to Afghanistan over involvement in terrorist attacks on Pakistan.
In response, he said, “There is no shift in our policy. And again, the facts have not changed. India is involved in sponsoring terrorism against Pakistan. What I was referring to was, in this particular incident, we have evidence of calls being traced to Afghanistan. This is what I said.”
