Image by Ramna Saeed. Used with permission.
The Regional Cooperation Development Highway (Quetta – Karachi) near Khudzar. Image by Ramna Saeed. Used with permission.
For decades, Balochistan, a province in Pakistan with a significant degree of autonomy, has suffered from an ongoing insurgency and violent attacks in the name of the movement. Separatist groups have been fighting for independence from Pakistan due to deteriorating living conditions characterized by poverty, lack of infrastructure, and limited access to basic services, despite the region's natural resource wealth and the military’s control in the region.
On March 11, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a banned separatist group, attacked a railway track and successfully hijacked the passenger train Jaffar Express — marking the first such incident in the history of Pakistan's Railways. The train, carrying over 400 passengers, including army and security personnel, was headed to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province from Quetta, the capital of the province.
BLA claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement. Due to the mountainous terrain, the Pakistan Military and Frontier Corps launched an operation by mid-morning, which lasted over 24 hours and resulted in the rescue of more than 370 passengers.
This is not the first time the train has been attacked. In November 2024, a deadly blast at Quetta Railway Station, carried out by the BLA, killed 26 passengers and injured over 60. A decade earlier, in 2014, an attack on the Jaffar Express at Sibi Station claimed 17 lives.
Deadly rail war
On March 5, 2025, the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) published the Global Terrorism Index 2025, providing a comprehensive analysis of key trends and patterns in terrorism over the past 17 years. The report ranked Pakistan second out of 163 countries. In 2023, the country witnessed 517 attacks, a number that more than doubled to 1,099 in 2024, resulting in 1,081 deaths.
According to Balochistan’s Home Department, between 2005 and 2015, Pakistan experienced 173 attacks on trains, railway tracks, and infrastructure. The majority of these targeted the Jaffar Express, with the Bolan Pass emerging as the most frequent site of such assaults. The Jaffer Express is the only daily train service linking Balochistan with the rest of the country. The Bolan Pass has long served as a preferred sanctuary for insurgents, offering strategic advantages that make it difficult for security forces to counter their movements.
Rafi Ullah Kakar, a public policy and development specialist from Balochistan, told Global Voices about the significance of train connectivity in addressing the province’s economic challenges. He highlighted frequent road blockades caused by protests and strikes as a major issue, stating:
Unlike Punjab and Sindh, Balochistan’s land routes remain closed most of the time due to demonstrations, severely impacting businesses, livelihoods, and the daily lives of common citizens.
Rise of the BLA and its growing influence
The BLA, a separatist group seeking Balochistan’s independence, has been active since the 2000s and is identified by Reuters as the most powerful insurgent group near the Afghanistan-Iran border. In 2024, it emerged as a key perpetrator of terror attacks in Pakistan and was designated a terrorist organization by multiple bodies, including Pakistan, the US, and the EU.
The group accuses the central government of exploiting Balochistan’s rich resources and has long employed violent tactics against the state, its institutions, and Chinese development projects in the region. Analysts argue that the BLA’s growing strength highlights the government’s failure to counter it effectively, as reliance on outdated and repressive strategies has done little to curb the insurgency.
Kakar believes Pakistan’s federal parliamentary system has failed to address Balochistan’s fundamental concerns. “This has led many Baloch youth to believe that the system cannot resolve their issues — a narrative long propagated by separatist groups. Alarmingly, even Baloch nationalists, after decades in mainstream politics, are now reaching a similar conclusion,” he warned.
Kakar attributes the BLA’s growing strength to three key factors: internal reorganization, access to advanced weaponry, and the region’s political turmoil. He further noted that following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, a significant quantity of modern weaponry fell into militant hands, strengthening their operational capabilities. While acknowledging the possibility of foreign interference in Balochistan’s insurgency, Kakar emphasized that “the conflict is fundamentally rooted in internal issues”.
Condemnations
The attack garnered worldwide attention, and condemnations poured in. People on social media strongly reacted to the attack, expressing their frustration with the state's incompetence in addressing the issue for decades.
At the same time, some accused the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (Balochistan Unity Committee) and its leader, Mahrang Baloch, of supporting the BLA and speaking out against forced disappearances. The BYC is a movement led by women from Balochistan advocating against illegal abductions and has condemned violence in any form in several interviews.
Marvi Sirmed, a Pakistani journalist, spoke to Global Voices, refuting claims that the BLA and BYC share any similarities. “The BYC raises its voice against atrocities committed against the Baloch people while being among the Baloch masses. It supports them wherever they are in Balochistan, unites them against genocide, and works to decentralize political activism, which has been nearly non-existent for many decades due to indiscriminate attacks on Baloch youth, activists, and intellectuals. The Pakistan military has weaponized a skewed notion of ‘patriotism’ against the Baloch people, and BYC is exposing it by peacefully exercising their fundamental rights,” she said.
Meanwhile, some social media users from India and Afghanistan were trending statements such as “Balochistan doesn’t belong to Pakistan” and “Free Balochistan”.
Pakistan blames India and Afghanistan
On March 12, 2025, the Pakistan Army’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) department and the Chief Minister of Balochistan, Sarfaraz Bugti, held a press conference. According to the Director General of ISPR, Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, after two days of intense military operations, 33 attackers were killed, and 26 passengers — including 18 army and FC personnel, as well as four Frontier Corps personnel — were dead. The remaining passengers were rescued. He also stated that the “rules of the game will change”, though he did not provide further details.
He alleged that the attackers coordinated the operation with their handlers and masterminds in Afghanistan via satellite phones. He also criticized the flow of misinformation on social media during the incident, particularly from India, and claimed there is a “nexus” between the terrorists and their masters.
There have been efforts to suppress the sharing of the news. Under the amended Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has registered cases against three persons, including a journalist. The cases allege the spread of false information and the incitement of public sentiment against state institutions following the Jaffar Express attack.
However, India and the Afghan Taliban issued separate statements on March 13th, where the foreign ministries of both countries termed Pakistan’s claims “baseless”.
Former Pakistani Ambassador to Germany and High Commissioner to India, Abdul Basit, speaking to Global Voices on WhatsApp, stressed that oversimplifying the Balochistan issue fosters complacency. He stated that successive governments have failed Balochistan while detractors have exploited Pakistan’s internal fault lines.
“Evidence of India’s involvement in terrorism in Pakistan, particularly in Balochistan, is abundant. Kulbhushan Jadhav’s arrest in March 2016 provided irrefutable proof of India’s terrorist activities in Pakistan,” he asserted. Basit worried that Western countries were pushing back against both China and their China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) with Pakistan. He urged Pakistani officials to step back, reconsider the situation comprehensively, and devise a more carefully balanced plan to tackle the complex problems facing Balochistan.
While the violence looks poised to continue, it is clear that military operations can't provide a solution to this decades-long issue and the underlying problems of underdevelopment in the region. Instead, advocates are asking for a serious political dialogue, an address to the grievances of local communities, and an agenda for the development of the region.