A point of no return in Baloch :::: Pakistan and its Punjabi-dominated army need to be blamed :::: Islamabad treasury doesn’t have much to win over disgruntled Baloch

The Pakistan government and army have no much political standing to handle the Baloch crisis.

The Pakistan army has no feet to stand on, having completely undermined the political process by brazenly stealing elections and imposing its puppets over the Baloch. 

Economically, the Pakistan treasury really doesn’t have much in store to win over the disgruntled Baloch. 

With growing calls for a no-holds-barred operation, the Pakistan army’s top brass will probably be left with no option but to launch a massive military operation. Not that it will solve the problem, because the Baloch insurgents would certainly be expecting such a reaction.

Unless the train attack was a trap to deliberately provoke the Pakistan army to launch such an attack, chances are that the insurgents will melt away into their sanctuaries in Afghanistan and Iran - only to strike back later when the situation is more conducive.

Development projects like CPEC are seen as tools to colonise and sell Balochistan’s resources to China for the benefit of the Punjabi elite. As for the propaganda war, there are no takers for the Pakistani narrative in Balochistan.

Mud House : A reality in Baloch 

Conceived in 2013 as the main vehicle of development in Balochistan, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), was launched in 2015. The $62-billion regional corridor comprising road, rail and port infrastructure and energy projects was promoted as a game changer in Pakistan.

However, a decade later, no game has changed in Balochistan in terms of economic and human development due to separatist violence and unrest. For instance, on August 26, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA)’s militants killed 53 people in a fresh spate of attacks across 10 districts of Balochistan.

The Baloch pro-independence militant group, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), has once again carried out an audacious attack in the most restive province of Pakistan. Baloch freedom fighters hijacked the Jaffar Express and took around 200 passengers hostage (some claims put the number at 500).

The militants claim that many of the hostages are either Pakistani security personnel (Pakistan army), government employees, or Punjabi settlers. 

"...the war for Balochistan’s liberation from Pakistan's yoke is unlikely to end anytime soon. If anything, its intensity, ferocity, and audacity continue to grow," says strategic expert Sushant Sareen in an article in 'India Today'. 

"Given the history of a bloody struggle in Balochistan, where the predominantly Punjabi Pakistan army’s brutalities against innocent Baloch citizens are now being paid back in the same coin, it would not be surprising if the Baloch separatists follow through on their threat. After all, the Baloch fighters are on a death mission with nothing to lose," he says. 

Both Baloch insurgent and jihadist militant groups have targeted Chinese infrastructure projects and workers in Pakistan to undermine CPEC. Unfortunately, Pakistan has emerged as one of the countries where the highest number of terrorist attacks against China have taken place.

Of all the groups targeting Chinese interests in Pakistan, the BLA’s suicide squad, the Majeed Brigade, has earned the notoriety of carrying out the most high-profile attacks. After assuming BLA’s leadership in 2018, Aslam Baloch revived the Majeed Brigade and embraced suicide terrorism in a strategic shift to grab international attention and highlight Baloch socio-economic grievances. The Majeed Brigade carried out the first suicide attack targeting a bus of Chinese engineers working on CPEC in Dalbandin district in 2018.  

Unfortunately for the Pakistan army, the more it doubles down on repression, the worse the problem becomes. In fact, the Pakistan army’s actions have provided more recruits to pro-independence militant groups than anything else.

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