On Sunday night 6th of October two Chinese national were killed in a terrorist attack in Karachi. The attack carried out through a suicide vehicle at the Jinnah International airport, Karachi which also saw eight people severely wounded. Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) claimed the responsibility of the terrorist attack through social media on Monday.
On 29th September militants in the Southwestern region of Balochistan province in Pakistan, killed 7 people and abducted 20 workers. The attack occurred in the Panjgur and Musakhali region and is the second attack in months as the deadliest insurgent attack happened in August of this year.
On the 26th of August this year Pakistan faced one of its deadliest attacks from the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) resulting in massive civilian and security personnel casualties. The coordinated attacks caused the death of 73 people in total and destroyed several security infrastructures. 35 vehicles, several police stations and a military base were also destroyed in these attacks. Amongst the dead 38 were civilians out of which 23 were workers from the neighbouring Punjab province. Accounts of spectators state that the militants stopped the buses carrying the workers at crucial highway checkpoints. There they searched for IDs and executed them cold-blooded on the side of the road. The BLA put out a statement that the workers from Punjab were allegedly security personnel in civilian clothing, but the Pakistan authority said that they were civilian workers.
These attacks are not the only violent incidents by the BLA in the province this year. In May several Chinese infrastructures and engineers were also attacked by the militia group which was a continuation of the attacks whose frequency had intensified in the last seven years. Thus, let us understand the rising Balochistan Insurgency movement in Pakistan, its origin and history, its conflict with the Pakistani state, and its reasons.
Origin and History Of Baloch Conflict
Balochistan is the geographically largest province in modern-day Pakistan. North to it is Afghanistan, on the south Arabian Sea, Iran bordering its west and Sindh of Pakistan is at its east. The region having its own cultural history has historical footprints spanning to the days of Harappan civilisation. Rich in resources Balochistan has an abundance of oil, copper, gold, cobalt and rare earth minerals under its land mass. A total of 40% of Pakistan’s oil and natural gas come from this region. Some estimations suggest that it holds the world’s largest copper and gold reserve. Currently, the region provides most of Pakistan’s revenue through its resources. However, for 75 years the region has been subjugated to exploitation and has been fighting for its rightful existence.
Like most of the geographical conflicts in the Indian subcontinent, this conflict also traces its origin to the Independence of United India from the British. In 1947, before independence, the land went through a horrifying partition due to the demands of the Muslim League. According to the Independence Act of 1947, the princely states of United India could join any of the two newly formed nations or stay independent. The Khanate of Kant, one such state in Baloch province decided to remain independent. But at the end of 47, the Pakistani state used its military to occupy the region and forced its prince at gunpoint to sign the Instrument of Accession for the transfer of power. However, the younger prince of the state, Prince Karim Khan, took arms opposing this action and put the foundation of Balochistan’s freedom movement from Pakistan.
The insurgency since its inception occurred mainly in five phases, i.e., 1948, 1958-59, 1962-64, 1973-77 and 2004-ongoing. With each successive phase, the resistance intensified and the involvement of the common people of the region increased. From 1973 to 1977 the Pakistani military killed 5000 militants in counterinsurgency operations with the help of the Iranian Air Force. In the conflict, 3000 army men also died. The most recent and bloodiest conflict started in 2003 during the period of the Military president Pervez Musharaff. The brewing sentiments of anger due to the state’s action towards Balochistan erupted due to the rape of a female doctor Shaiza Khan by security personnel Captain Hammad. The shielding of the rapist by the state and the then-president’s bigoted comment on the issue sparked an outrage that turned into an armed conflict. During the 2010s, the conflict was depleted to a minimal level and some Pakistani publications called the movement insignificant. However, since the start of the 2020s, the insurgency caught a new pace resulting in violent incidents every month since 2021. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s economic and political crisis also fuelled the momentum of the movement.
It must be understood that the Baloch nationalist movement is led by habitants of the region in two front. One front is leading the fight for civil protest believing in civil demonstration renouncing violence. The other front which conducts violent raids and attacks on strategic locations and personal harbours armed conflict and is mainly comprised of five organisations, i.e., Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), Baloch Liberation Front (BLF), Baloch Republic Army (BRA), Lashkar-E-Baloch and Baloch Jhalawan Tigers.
Reasons for Insurgency
Despite being the richest province in terms of natural resources and fertile land, Balochistan is still the most undeveloped in modern-day Pakistan. Islamabad always adopted an ignorant approach to the policy-making decisions for the region. Education, healthcare and infrastructure are minimal and the proportion of resources distributed to the region is very low in contrast to other regions. Despite being the biggest asset of the country, Balochistan is treated as a cash cow being in a state of continuous exploitation. As of now, the region has the lowest life expectancy, lowest adult literacy rate, lowest preschool enrolment, and highest infant mortality rate.
Since the first insurgency in 1948, the region has been more or less under military rule. Human rights abuse by army personnel is a common utterance in the region. Mass murder and burial, mass rape, torcher and abuse by the army are the constant plight of the people of the region. The phenomenon of the disappearance of citizens by the army is so common in the region that several reports called it normal in Balochistan. Unlawful arrests, disappearances and kidnappings by the security forces are in the upper end of ten thousand between the year 2006 and 2024.
The most contemporary of the issues is the issue of involvement of China in the region. With an economy constantly at its knees, Pakistan turned to the only country in the region where it is not an enemy- China for financial support. Beijing eyeing Balochistan jumped at the opportunity and started investing in several big infra and mining projects. Pakistan also gave a free hand to China when it came to the region, an example of this is the port in the Gwadar region that has been leased exclusively to China for 40 years and the pathway of CPEC projects. Citizens, however, are unhappy with these projects as the only country that is benefiting from these investments is mostly China. Chinese involvement has been the cause of the crumbling of local trade and economy, demographic change and internal migration, and dubious business and labour practices. Also, the citizens fear that the increased involvement of China will make it difficult for the resistance to achieve its freedom from the Pakistani state if in future Beijing assists Pakistan in the interest of its investments.
The partition of Pakistan from India was done on the basis of religion. After partition Pakistani administrators who were the key figures of the call for partition tried to homogenise the country by rewriting the history of the region related to the Indic civilisation and erasing the individual cultures of the tribes living on that land mass of the Indian subcontinent. Balochistan is not just a geographical region but a region with people having their own culture residing in parts of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. The culture, food habits, festivals and language are also different from Sindh and Punjab provinces of Pakistan. The state however since 1947 tried to suppress and abolish this heritage. So, experts and intellectuals often express that the Baloch resistance is not only a fight for their rightful and just existence but also a fight for identity for the people of Balochistan.