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.

Mehboob Hussain was riding the train home on Tuesday when the tracks under the front car exploded. In the depths of central Pakistan's Bolan Pass, a pocket of wilderness so remote that there is no internet or mobile network coverage,

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

The Pakistani government, facing a widening security crisis in the country’s restive southwest, has given little indication it intends to negotiate with the militants.

Dozens of people rescued from a train hijacked by separatist militants in southwestern Pakistan arrived on Thursday in the city of Quetta, hours after security forces killed all 33 attackers to end a day-long standoff.

Nearly 200 have been freed but the status of other passengers remains unclear as security forces continue to battle separatist militants.

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s neglected southwestern province of Balochistan has been the scene of a yearslong insurgency, with a dramatic uptick in attacks in recent years underscoring the struggles the government in Islamabad faces in dealing with myriad security threats.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif went to Balochistan province Thursday to meet with 300 survivors and the troops who rescued them after a Baloch Liberation Army train attack that began Tuesday.

Pakistan's army says it has freed more than 300 hostages from a passenger train seized by militants in Balochistan province on Tuesday. The military spokesperson said 33 militants were killed during the operation.

Twenty-one passengers were killed after a train in Pakistan was attacked and hundreds were taken hostage on Tuesday, according to the Pakistani military.