At the time of writing this piece, a rescue operation by the security forces against terrorists belonging to the Balochistan Liberation Army was in its last phase and, as per media reports in Pakistan, might even conclude by Wednesday night. On Tuesday, terrorists blew up a railway track, opened fire, and hijacked the Jaffar Express in Balochistan’s Bolan district. The train was on a 30-hour-long journey from Quetta to Peshawar, carrying around 400 passengers. The security forces have freed around 190 hostages and eliminated some 30 terrorists. Many passengers have been killed by the BLA militants. Security sources claim that suicide bombers had taken women and children hostage, making the rescue effort rather difficult.
While the BLA has carried out terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings, before, the analyst, Farrukh Saleem, believes that this hijacking does not have the hallmark of BLA. “In its 25-year campaign of insurgency, the BLA has not exhibited such sophisticated command-and-control capabilities or the technical acumen required for a kinetic operation of this magnitude… To be certain, the operation has all the hallmarks of proxy warfare. States often provide resources and use insurgent groups to maintain plausible deniability. The BLA’s capacity to pull this off alone is doubtful; a state sponsor must have supplied the intelligence, training and materiel, then step back as the BLA takes credit,” Saleem writes in The News.
Once the rescue operation is over and the hostages are brought back safely, the government must come up with a proper plan to tackle the BLA. It must reach
out to all political parties in Balochistan, especially the nationalist parties, and come to a consensus on this issue. The people of Balochistan have not had proper representation in governance for over a decade now. This has led to a disconnect between the Baloch people and the State. This needs to be addressed by the true representatives of the Baloch people and not those who have been hand-picked by the State to represent them.
A day before this deadly hijacking, President Asif Ali Zardari kicked off the second parliamentary year by addressing a joint session of Parliament. He said something important that echoes what Baloch politicians have been telling us for long: the sense of deprivation in Balochistan needs to be addressed. In his speech, Zardari said: “For any country to prosper, it must build equitably... We need to ensure that all of our peoples, with their different regions and resources, are on board for national development... We should work actively to promote inclusive and uniform development, ensuring that no province, no district, and no village is left behind...Ensure that development is not limited to a few selected areas but reaches every nook and corner of the country. The ignored and neglected areas demand urgent attention...They also need investments in infrastructure, education, healthcare, and economic opportunities to address their sense of deprivation.” These words should be repeated over and over to make sure that the government does not forget far-flung areas when it is taking decisions to improve infrastructure and investing in healthcare and education, among other things.
There is no denying that Pakistan is finally experiencing some economic stability and there may not be an immediate threat to the government. But this does not mean that everything is hunky-dory. Two of the biggest threats to this economic and political stability are terrorism and extremism. The State must tackle these two issues as a top priority. Until there is a clear policy on tackling extremism, there will not be an end to terrorism.
The terrorist attack on Haqqania madrasa last month and a series of other attacks, primarily in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, show that terrorism has indeed made a comeback in the country years after the State had successfully eliminated this menace. Extremism is the root cause of terrorism. The State must fight extremism and terrorism together.
Mehmal Sarfraz is a journalist based in Lahore; mehmal.s@gmail.com
