A group of militants seized a Peshawar-bound train, igniting a 36-hour hostage crisis, but this attack is part of a decades-long insurgency rooted in the Baloch separatist groups' violent struggle for an independent state.

Terrorists in explosive vests have reportedly threatened Pakistan train passengers' lives if officials refuse to release imprisoned militants.

The BLA has taken hostage an entire train after it broke the tracks as the train was passing through one of the tunnels in Pakistan's Bolan area. There were 500 passengers onboard but the group said it has released women and children and held hostage Pak and ISI personnel.

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

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

The scope of the attack underscored the struggles Pakistan faces in efforts to reign in militant groups as attacks across the country surged in recent years. Accusing India and neighboring Afghanistan has been Pakistan's go-to strategy in the past.

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.