By Staff Reporter
KARACHI: Counterterrorism authorities in the southern Sindh province arrested five members of a banned Baloch separatist outfit on Friday, disrupting what officials described as an imminent attack on railway infrastructure in this major port city.
The Sindh Counter-Terrorism Department said the suspects belonged to the proscribed Baloch Republican Guard and were detained during a joint intelligence-based operation involving provincial police, Pakistan Rangers and a federal intelligence agency. In a statement, the department said the raid had “foiled a terrorist plan on railway tracks in Karachi.”
The group had already conducted at least six low-intensity bombings along railway lines in Sindh’s northern districts of Jacobabad and Shikarpur over the past year, causing partial damage to tracks and train carriages, the statement said. The Baloch Republican Guard had publicly claimed responsibility for those attacks on its social media accounts.
Investigators recovered explosives, improvised explosive devices, weapons and ammunition from the arrested men, officials said. Interrogation revealed that the suspects were directly responsible for four specific incidents: a train bombing in Jacobabad on June 6, 2025; an explosion near a railway station in Shikarpur on July 28, 2025; an attack on the Jaffar Express in Shikarpur on Oct. 7, 2025, in which at least seven people were injured; and another explosion near a railway track on Jan. 26.
The suspects told interrogators they had received training and explosives in Lehri, Balochistan, and that family members had helped transport the material to evade law enforcement checkpoints. A separate team has been formed to track down facilitators and associates, the department said, adding that “interrogation of the suspects is ongoing and further revelations are expected.”
Deputy Inspector General Azfar Mahesar, who heads the Sindh Counter-Terrorism Department, told reporters the arrests represented “a major dent” in the group’s operations. He alleged that the Baloch Republican Guard was receiving funding from neighbouring India and described the case as having “exposed another terror nexus orchestrated by India.” Mahesar noted that Sindh had not seen any major terrorism incidents in the past year and characterised the group’s attacks as low-intensity.
The development comes two months after security forces in Karachi thwarted what officials called a far larger plot. In January, intelligence agencies and the Counter-Terrorism Department jointly seized a truck loaded with roughly 2,000 kilograms of explosive material on the outskirts of the city. The cache included 30 plastic drums and five cylinders rigged with multiple types of detonators, all described as “ready-to-explode.” Authorities said at the time that the operation had averted a potentially catastrophic attack in Pakistan’s commercial capital.
The Baloch Republican Guard is among several Baloch nationalist groups outlawed by Pakistani authorities for alleged involvement in attacks on infrastructure and security forces in the resource-rich but impoverished Balochistan province and adjacent areas of Sindh. Pakistani officials have long accused India of backing such outfits, a charge New Delhi has consistently denied.
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