Jaffar Express attack: a battle on all fronts
Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif on March 14, 2025, sitting along with Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti, reemphasised that India is the main sponsor of terrorism in Balochistan while Afghanistan is a source of support for terrorist activities in Pakistan — the two uncontested facts that every sane person knows in Pakistan.
He informed media that the Jaffar Express incident was part of “India’s ongoing terrorist mindset”. Yes, this is what India is not shy to accept and Indian Prime Minister Modi in his speech on Independence Day of 2016 confirmed that India is directly involved in domestic affairs of Pakistan and supporting terrorism in Balochistan. He said “People of Balochistan, Gilgit, POK (the diction India uses for Azad Kashmir) have thanked me a lot in the past few days, I am grateful to them,". It may be remembered he was referring to a wave of sectarian clashes/killings that emerged in Gilgit-Baltistan during 2012 onward.
Moreover, there is irrefutable evidence that several BLA separatists, including Balach Marri, had been travelling to India and he was killed in Afghanistan in a NATO raid where he was allegedly operating along with the Taliban. Indian embassies are not shy to support Baloch separatists in North America and Europe, where they attend events arranged by Baloch separatists. Therefore, there is nothing new that India and Afghanistan are behind cross-border terrorism against Pakistan.
The response of Indian media was enough to understand that they had prior information about the incident and Indian journalists were first to know about this, although the train hijack took place in a remote area where there were no cellphone signals and even law enforcement agencies had no information for first six hours about the situation at the ground. India media instantly circulated AI-generated videos and broadcast fabricated and cooked content, and the same content thereafter was used by thousands of social media handlers, winning the first phase of narrative building with a deep fake strategy.
As we know India and Afghanistan are collaborating against Pakistan, the question is what is to be done? I have no iota of doubt that India would continue to target Pakistan as an arch rival and Afghanistan will continue to be a source of terrorism in Pakistan. What is new in it and what should have been done, and what could have been done, are questions that need answers.
In this press conference DG ISPR confronted a question when a lady asked him "was the Jaffar Express incident not a failure of intelligence agencies? Should this question have not been asked to the Interior Minister who is officially responsible for civil intelligence networking, or is there no civilian intelligence networking operating in Pakistan?
It is eccentric that the Pakistan Army is supposed to handle and answer everything from floods to dollar smuggling and from provincial security to sharing information about what foreign country is behind terrorism in Pakistan. Is it not the time of packing and wrapping up civilian institutions if Pakistan Army has to look after everything?
The facts shared by DG ISPR and Chief Minister Balochistan should have also been shared by Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi along with DG ISPR and Chief Minister Balochistan because they are foremost responsible for Foreign Affairs and Internal Security. In a press briefing, DG ISPR indicated many of the assailants were linked to Afghan-trained militants, suggesting that the masterminds of the Jaffar Express attack were based near Pakistan’s northern border. Did Pakistan’s foreign office on the same day, call Afghan diplomats to the FO and protest about the situation? There is no doubt that Munir Akram, Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, raised this issue several times at the UN forum but did not find an answer to how it could be stopped.
DG ISPR again highlighted issues of illegal economic activities at the Pakistan-Afghan border, including edibles, drugs, and weapons smuggling. He had raised this sensitive issue in the past also and one must appreciate him because this is the first time that this tricky issue has been discussed at an official level. There is no doubt left that Pakistan is facing economic terrorism brutally injected from Afghanistan.
In 2005 the Geneva Centre for Security Policy defined economic terrorism in the following terms: “Contrary to “economic warfare” which is undertaken by states against other states, “economic terrorism” would be undertaken by transnational or non-state actors. This could entail varied, coordinated, and sophisticated or massive destabilising actions to disrupt the economic and financial stability of a state, a group of states, or a society for ideological or religious motives. These actions, if undertaken, may be violent or not. They could have either immediate effects or psychological effects, which in turn have economic consequences”.
According to the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, economic terrorism impacts: immediate loss of human and nonhuman capital; effects of uncertainty on consumer and investor behavior; effects of retrenchment on specific industries or localities; increased costs of security analogous to a “security” or “terrorist tax”; impact on supply chains; smuggling of currency for bleeding the country economically; smuggling of edible products to create serious food security in the target country; encouraging undocumented economy; controlling routes for disrupting supply chains; attacking and harassing local and foreign investors (reference attacks on Chinese experts and ransom threats to industrialists, businessmen, and traders in Pakistan) etc.
Reading the above-mentioned pointers, one can compare them with the situation Pakistan is facing and would get the answer instantly that secret manipulation of the economy (edible and foreign currency smuggling, Hawala, Hundi) and attacks against ports and land borders (attacks in and around Gwadar Port, and Karachi Port) are linked with bleeding Pakistan economically.
The triangle of India, Afghanistan, and TTP is categorically known, but how Pakistan can overcome and defeat this triangle is a question that needs serious deliberations and an all-inclusive strategy. Right now, academicians, journalists, writers, government institutions, and politicians are virtually staying away from the grave situation, sending a message that “this is the responsibility of the Pakistan Army to handle the situation”. This kind of indifferent behavior and laid back attitude shown by politicians and civil institutions is sending a message that “The Army is responsible to look after everything in Pakistan, particularly the security of the country”. There is an entire bureaucratic system available and thousands of bureaucrats are working in ministries including the Interior Ministry whose foremost responsibility is ensuring internal security of the country, while hundreds of bureaucrats sitting in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a foremost duty of responding intervention of a foreign country into internal affairs of Pakistan, particularly Pakistan’s security.
The response of civilian components of the state towards the Jaffar Express incident created reasons to believe that civilian components are not ready to take responsibility of such an event. Was there any official statement from Pakistan Railways and Railway Police about what happened to the security of the train? There should have been three-dimensional strategy to handle consequences after Jaffar Express incident, in which the Foreign Minister should have briefed foreign media as well as diplomats about direct involvement of India and Afghanistan in the attack; the Interior Minister should have explained intelligence reports with foreign and national media, citing the involvement of the Indian RAW and Afghans.
There is no doubt that the foremost responsibility of law and order of the province is the responsibility of the provincial government and here one should appreciate CM Bugti who courageously faced the situation and contacted the media and shared necessary. Since Pakistan is going through an existential crisis by facing multipronged strategies of enemies, the country needs synchronised, aligned and all-inclusive moves of politicians, civil bureaucracy, Intelligentsia and the Army instead of leaving all responsibilities to only one organisation (Pakistan Army) to handle the situation at every level.
Agha Iqrar Haroon is a senior journalist based in Islamabad
All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the writer