Pakistan’s military accuses neighboring India of sponsoring militants in the restive southwestern Balochistan province, which saw an unprecedented attack this week by armed separatists.

Baloch separatist militants blew up a railway track and launched rockets at the Jaffar Express, which was carrying over 400 passengers.

Separatist militants fired at a passenger train in southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, injuring a train driver, police and railway officials said.

Pakistani officials say insurgents who attacked a passenger train carrying 440 people in the southwest killed 21 hostages but security forces rescued the others.

The militants, Baloch ethnic fighters, said they would kill dozens of seized security personnel if the Pakistani government did not agree to a prisoner exchange.

Pakistan's military spokesman said on Friday the death toll in a train hijacking in the country's southwestern mountains had risen to 31 and he repeated accusations that neighbouring India and Afghanistan backed the militants who carried it out.

Pakistan’s prime minister has commended the country’s armed forces for successfully rescuing 339 passengers after a deadly train hijacking by insurgents in the southwest

Hostages freed after a day-long ordeal following an attack by militants on a train in Pakistan's Balochistan province described crouching on the floor for hours before their release, as the bodies of 25 people killed arrived in Quetta.