Trains of terror

As Jaffer Express blast shows, it is the ordinary people of Balochistan who are the chief victims of the unrest.

Trains, as well as passenger coaches travelling through Balochistan, have come under attack time and again. This happened once more on October 21, when a bomb detonated by remote control hit the Jaffer Express, taking passengers from Rawalpindi to Quetta as it moved through the Nasirabad district. Six persons were killed, including a woman. The many injured were taken to hospitals where some still remain.



Predictably enough, a separatist group, this time the Baloch Republican Army (BRA), has taken responsibility for the attack, claiming it was targeting security personnel returning from Punjab to Balochistan after the Eid break. It is, of course, almost impossible to verify the authenticity of these claims; nor does it seem as if any security personnel died in the bombing which ripped through a large portion of the track and caused a number of carriages to derail. The BRA is, in the complex web of Baloch nationalist politics, associated with Brahamdagh Bugti, grandson of the late Nawab Akbar Bugti, who lives in exile in Switzerland. Peace overtures made to him, directly and indirectly over the past few years, seem to have done nothing to alter his hardline stance. And from quake-hit Awaran, we have, of course, recently had a spate of reports concerning activities by the militant group led by former torture victim Dr Allah Nazar.

The latest bombing is simply a reminder of the intensity of Balochistan’s problems. While the chief minister of the province, Dr Abdul Malik Baloch, is a man who commands much respect, he has been unable so far to persuade separatist elements to talk. Other stakeholders in the province need to step in and come together for this purpose. If they fail to do so, we risk seeing Balochistan quite literally being torn apart by the ceaseless violence that has affected it for years and to which no end seems to be in sight. As the Jaffer Express blast shows, it is the ordinary people of the province who are the chief victims of the unrest which grips it, with many forces involved in taking advantage of the prevailing situation in all kinds of ways.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2013.

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