Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Monday blamed Baloch separatists and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) for a series of militant attacks and violent incidents in southwestern Balochistan over the past 24 hours, which resulted in the deaths of over 53 people, excluding the insurgents.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province bordering Iran and Afghanistan, is home to major China-led projects, including a strategic port and a gold and copper mine. The region has long been plagued by a separatist insurgency led by ethnic Baloch militants, who claim they are fighting against what they see as the exploitation of the province’s mineral and gas resources by the central government. The state denies these allegations, asserting that it is working to uplift the impoverished province through various development initiatives.
The recent surge in violence across multiple districts on Sunday night presents a significant challenge for Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s fragile coalition government, which is already grappling with an economic crisis, political instability, and a rise in militant violence by both religiously motivated and separatist groups nationwide. Balochistan is also witnessing civil rights protests led by young ethnic Baloch people, who are demanding an end to what they describe as enforced disappearances and other human rights abuses by security forces—accusations that the security forces deny.
The violence that erupted on Sunday evening was marked by several brutal incidents. In Musakhel, a district in northeastern Balochistan, 23 passengers were pulled from their vehicles and shot dead. In another attack, the Pakistan Army reported that it had killed 21 militants during a clearance operation in which 14 soldiers and police officers also lost their lives. Additionally, 10 people, including five security personnel, were killed when militants stormed a paramilitary force station in Kalat. Militants also blew up a railway bridge in the Bolan area of Balochistan’s Kachhi district, where six unidentified bullet-riddled bodies were later found near the bridge under unclear circumstances.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the most prominent of several separatist groups operating in Balochistan, claimed responsibility for an attack on a security forces’ camp in the Bela area of Lasbela district on Sunday, alleging that they had killed 68 “army personnel.”
Interior Minister Naqvi told reporters, “The TTP and many foreign elements are involved in these attacks. We will unmask them all,” adding that militants operating from safe havens in neighboring Afghanistan were launching attacks in Pakistan—a charge that Kabul denies. “We know who planned this and who is behind them. They thought carefully and conducted the attacks in a single day,” he said. “The entire leadership has decided that we will respond to them with full force.”
