IT must, no doubt, be deeply troubling to the state that terrorist outfits have taken to repeatedly targeting the Jaffar Express, as if to signal that they can resort to sabotage whenever they wish and get away with it. Earlier this week, six bogies of the passenger train derailed when a bomb attack tore up the railway track in Balochistan’s Dasht tehsil in Mastung district. Thankfully, no loss of life was reported. But one can imagine the terror the ill-fated train’s passengers must have experienced. There were 350 on board, travelling from Quetta to Peshawar, when the train derailed. Their minds must inevitably have wandered to the tragedy that occurred merely five months earlier on the same train, when the BLA had used a very similar method to stop and hijack it. They must have thought of the dozens killed during the rescue operation to liberate the passengers from the terrorists. In short, they would have felt very vulnerable. And this is, perhaps, precisely what the terrorists operating in the region wanted. It bears highlighting that this was the second bomb attack on the same train in just four days.

In fact, since the March 11 tragedy, the Jaffar Express seems to have become a first-choice target for terrorist outfits, likely because it is a symbol of Balochistan’s connectedness to the other provinces. The repeated attempts to ambush it are a recurring reminder that the state faces an uphill battle in quelling Balochistan’s unrest. It is fortunate that, since March, there has been no reported loss of life in these attacks. But given their frequency and the state’s seeming inability to prevent them, the fear remains that another major tragedy could be right around the corner. It is the state that should take responsibility and act to pre-empt it. There is an urgent need to reassess the strategies being adopted to manage Balochistan’s growing sociopolitical unrest, especially as observers believe it is feeding the violence breaking out across the province. Many appeals have been made to the state to exercise more restraint, especially when dealing with the province’s social and political leadership, as the dismissal of all dissent as treachery and anti-national sentiment is alienating Balochistan’s ordinary people. Such policies are not making the province any safer. The Jaffar Express’s travails are merely a reminder of this.

Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2025