When the news of an entire train being hijacked in the rugged, mountainous terrain of Balochistan first broke, the thought that crossed my mind instantaneously was, ‘This is Pakistan’s Kandahar moment.’
Quite similar to how the Indian Airlines plane was hijacked from Kathmandu to Kandahar at the turn of the millennium in 1999, the Jaffar Express—ambushed in the middle of the afternoon of 11 March 2025—was taken over by armed militia. Like in the case of IC 814, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) held guns to the heads of frightened civilians and asked for arrested fellow militants to be released.
The Pakistani army launched a counter-offensive and ended the crisis after a tense standoff that went on for 36 hours. The operation left 33 terrorists and 21 passengers dead. According to the military’s media wing, four military personnel were killed in one of the most brazen attacks.
Never before in Pakistan’s history has an entire train been hijacked, though the same train, Jaffar Express, has been attacked several times. And this latest tryst with terror has derailed the security situation in Pakistan. The BLA which claimed credit for the train hijacking, and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), both pose a threat that has increased not just in scale but also in its sheer intensity.