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, the nine-coach Jaffar Express ground to a halt. Then the bullets started flying.

A security force personnel member stands guard near a train containing empty coffins that are dispatched to Bolan where a passenger train that was attacked by separatist militants, at a railway station in Quetta,

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.