Jaffar Express hijacking: DG ISPR says India main sponsor of terrorism in Balochistan

Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said on Friday that India was the main sponsor of terrorism in Balochistan, as he provided details of the Jaffar Express train attack.

The attack began Tuesday afternoon when BLA terrorists ambushed the Quetta-Peshawar train carrying 440 passengers, opening fire and taking hostages. Security forces launched a two-day operation, concluding Wednesday evening. Lt Gen Chaudhry confirmed that all 33 terrorists were neutralised, with 21 passengers and four FC personnel killed, but no hostages harmed in the final rescue phase.

At the beginning of the press conference today, Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti denounced the attack and said, “They targeted unarmed people. This so-called fight is perpetrated by purely evil forces — and they should only be referred to as terrorists.”

Taking over the presser, Lt Gen Chaudhry provided a brief detail of the incident again and said that the terrorists had deliberately selected a remote location to conduct the attack.

“The reason I am mentioning the location is that the terrain was extremely difficult, making physical access very challenging. There were no mobile signals there either.”

Before the train was ambushed, he said, a large group of terrorists attacked a Frontier Corps picket, martyring three FC soldiers.

“They operated in multiple groups, taking strategic positions on higher ground. After planting the improvised explosive device (IED), which disabled the train, they took the passengers hostage,” he detailed.

He said some passengers were held inside the train while others were separated into three groups outside.

“A group of hostages was released based on their ethnic affiliations,” he said, adding that there were logistical reasons for the move since there were too many people in the train for the terrorists to control.

He said the terrorists tried to create a “false impression” of humanitarian values by claiming they had released some hostages.

Lt Gen Chaudhry said the terrorists had used both Indian and Afghan weapons in the recent incident, as well as in previous attacks.

“We must understand that in this terrorist incident in Balochistan, and others before, the main sponsor is your eastern neighbour.”

Showing various clips of Indian officials and personalities discussing efforts to destabilise Balochistan, the DG ISPR said the Jaffar Express attack was a “continuation of the same policy.”

India leading informational warfare

DG ISPR then criticised the Indian media for spreading propaganda about the incident.

“The Indian media displayed fake footage of the incident to spread propaganda,” he said, as he showed some video clips on a screen to prove his point.

“They attempted to create a narrative by sharing AI-generated images and fake videos. They were leading an informational warfare.”

The DG ISPR said a “nexus” was working amid the situation to give legitimacy to the terrorists and their narrative.

Questioned about why there was a rise in terrorism, the DG ISPR said the pace of implementation of the National Action Plan’s 14 points needed to be considered first.

He said law enforcement agencies conducted 59,775 intelligence-based operations, both major and minor, in 2024. So far in 2025, 11,654 IBOs have been carried out.

“This year, we are averaging 180 IBOs per day,” he added. Meanwhile, around 1,250 terrorists were “sent to hell” in 2024 and 2025, while 563 security personnel were martyred in the line of duty, he said.

Taking over the press conference, CM Bugti said, “We’re in an intelligence-driven war waged against the state of Pakistan by RAW and other hostile agencies through Afghanistan especially because Afghan soil is being against us.”

A day ago, a high-level security conference was held in Quetta, reaffirming the state’s resolve to counter any attempt to destabilise Pakistan with full force. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Chief of Army Staff General Syed Asim Munir, federal and provincial ministers, senior civil and military officials, and representatives of political parties attended the meeting, according to state-run Radio Pakistan.

Following the moot, PM Shehbaz, in a press conference, urged national unity and called on Pakistan’s political leadership to sit together with the military to discuss the challenges facing the country.

A National Assembly session was also held on Thursday, during which Defence Minister Khawaja Asif assailed the PTI for “politicising” the hijacking incident and “misinterpreting” the situation on social media. The attack drew widespread condemnation from different countries, including China, the United States, Iran, and Germany.

BLA attacks

Balochistan has witnessed an uptick in terrorist attacks over the past year. In November 2024, at least 26 people were killed and 62 injured after a suicide blast ripped through a Quetta Railway Station.

In 2024, the banned BLA emerged as a key perpetrator of terrorist violence in Pakistan, according to a report by Islamabad-based think tank Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS).

In August last year, dozens of militants affiliated with BLA launched numerous attacks across the province, in which at least 50 people, including 14 security men, lost their lives. In response, security forces had neutralised 21 militants.

Earlier that month, then-Panjgur deputy commissioner Zakir Baloch was shot dead on the Quetta-Karachi National Highway, with CM Bugti stating that the BLA was the group behind it.

In October 2024, a suicide bombing near Karachi airport killed two Chinese nationals and a Pakistani citizen, for which two BLA suspects were sent to jail on judicial remand while a probe body was formed as well.

The group also claimed responsibility for the Quetta railway suicide bombing in November last year, in which at least 26 people, including 16 security personnel, lost their lives, and 61 others were injured.

Pakistan designated the BLA as a terrorist organisation in April 2006 after the group repeatedly attacked security personnel.

In January this year, a former BLA member said during a press conference that the banned group “brainwashed average citizens into thinking a certain way about Balochistan and resorting to terrorist activities.”

Last month, the BLA claimed responsibility for an attack in Balochistan’s Barkhan, where seven Punjab-bound passengers were offloaded from a bus and shot dead.

In earlier grand-scale hijackings in the country, one that particularly comes to mind was in 1994, when three armed militants from Afghanistan took control of a school bus near Peshawar and took around 70 children hostage. The bus was driven to the Embassy of Afghanistan in Islamabad, where units of elite commandoes gunned them down the next day.