Quetta attack exposes Balochistan fault lines Pakistan can no longer deny

The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which is combating the Punjabi-dominated Pakistani state for the rights and freedom of the Baloch people, claimed that it struck a shuttle train at Chaman Phatak in Quetta on the morning of May 24.

The attack was carried out by a suicide bomber who crashed his explosives-laden vehicle on the moving train at the railway crossing.

The shuttle train was carrying more than 300 passengers from the Quetta cantonment to the city’s main railway station.

Many of the passengers consisted of military personnel and their family members going to board the Jaffar Express to travel to their hometowns in the Punjab or the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) provinces; they were going for the Eid ul Adha (more popularly called Bakr Eid or Qurbani Eid) holidays.

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The suicide bombing led to at least 24 fatalities and injuries to over 70 persons as the engine and three coaches of the train derailed. Two of the bogies also caught fire. As the shuttle train was passing through a congested area, the explosion damaged houses, and many vehicles parked outside them were destroyed as they caught fire.

All in all, this was a major militant attack and has led to considerable grief in Pakistan. Not only did political leaders take to social media to express their sadness at the loss of life, but film stars, including the well-known actor Mahira Khan, joined them in doing so.

Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti expressed solidarity and sympathies to the families of the bereaved, vowed that the deaths would not go in vain and blamed the BLA, which Pakistan now calls 'Fitna al-Hindustan'.

This writer has earlier clarified, in these columns, that by calling BLA 'Fitna al-Hindustan', the Pakistani army and politicians wish to divert attention from the Baloch people’s struggle against their ruthless exploitation by the Punjabi-dominated Pakistani state.

More specifically, they wish to embed in the mind of the non-Balochi Pakistani people that the militant Baloch groups, which are sacrificing so much for their rights, are Indian proxies.

The fact is that the amalgamation of Balochistan into Pakistan in 1947-48 by the Pakistani government was through deceit and force. An insurgency broke out against Balochistan’s merger at that time itself. Till today the Baloch people have not reconciled to the merger despite the brutality of the Pakistani army against them. Against great odds, they have been attempting to fight fire with fire.

The Chaman Phatak attack has come in the wake of a series of militant attacks against the Pakistani security forces in KP and Balochistan since the beginning of this year. A major attack in Bannu in KP on May 10 led to the death of around 20 security personnel. Pakistan has been blaming Afghanistan for giving shelter to the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP) and the Baloch groups and India for providing them support and assistance.

This is the classic way of the Pakistani army to blame foreign countries for insurgencies whose cause is its own policies and actions. In KP the Pashtun groups, some of which were promoted by the army itself, have turned against them because of the alienation among sections of the Pashtun people. This alienation is being caused by the growing assault of the Pakistan state on the traditional autonomy enjoyed by the Pashtuns.

The reaction of the Pakistani army to the Chaman Phatak attack has not been as strong as could have been expected. There is no doubt that it would have evoked memories of the Jaffar Express attack of March 2025. That would have led to great anger, if not rage. The Pakistani generals would also be angry because the attack in the heart of Quetta and near the cantonment on a shuttle carrying military personnel and their families to board the Jaffar Express has exposed their inability to control BLA strikes all across Balochistan.

It is likely that Pakistani leaders and the army have largely refrained from directly pointing fingers at India in the past 48 hours because they do not want to divert attention from the role Pakistan is playing in intermediating between Iran and the US. It is earning goodwill of both countries and also in many important quarters of the world. It is seeking to project itself as a responsible state with diplomatic outreach.

Amidst the attention that Pakistan is receiving, the main focus is on Field Marshal Asim Munir. Recently, when President Donald Trump spoke to a number of leaders of important Islamic countries, he called Munir, not Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Hence, Munir the 'peace maker' would hardly like the focus to shift to how Balochistan and KP are burning.

All this does not mean that in its twisted mind the Pakistani army would not hold India and Afghanistan behind the Chaman Phatak attack. After the Jaffar Express attack last year, the Pakistanis undertook the barbaric Pahalgam terrorist attack.

Based on that experience and the knowledge of the Pakistani establishment’s mind that the Indian policymakers have, there is little doubt that they would keep a wary and vigilant eye on any response that the Pakistanis may now plan and seek to execute in the coming months.

Indeed, it is vital that India keep up its defences, and it would also be prudent to discreetly inform the major powers to caution Pakistan against any unwise move it may make. For the Chaman Phatak attack, till now only its minister of communications, Abdul Aleem Khan, has blamed India directly. In a post on X he wrote, “This attack is yet another proof of the cowardice of the terrorist organisation BLA, as cowardly India is attempting to disrupt Pakistan’s peace through its proxies." This is nonsense.

(The writer is a former Indian diplomat who served as India’s Ambassador to Afghanistan and Myanmar, and as secretary, the Ministry of External Affairs. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)