ISLAMABAD/BEIJING (Naveed Siddiqui) – India has secretly funded terrorist forces in Pakistan, in various parts of the country, including Balochistan, inciting local secessionists to undermine regional stability, Chinese newspaper Global Times quoted sources in a latest report.
Citing the sources, the newspaper says there are “solid bits of evidence” proving that New Delhi is providing the terrorists forces them with money, weapons, and training and noted that India has a long history of backing terrorism in Pakistan.
“In December 2023, [Sarfraz Ahmed Bungulzai] a commander of the Baloch National Army (BNA) separatist militant group, who had surrendered himself to the Pakistani government, disclosed that India has been secretly supporting terrorist activities in Balochistan and financing separatist forces in the region,” the report notes.
However, Chinese observers said the commander’s surrender does not mean the collapse of the BNA, the group may have an impact on similar terrorist and separatist forces there.
Apart from the latest case pointing to India, a few years back, there was another case that indicated that India was probably supporting terrorism in Pakistan.
In March 2016, Pakistan’s Inter Services Public Relations released a confessional video statement of an Indian spy agent named Kulbhushan Yadav, who was reportedly arrested red-handed earlier that month while attempting to infiltrate Pakistan from the border area.
The Hindu, for instance, published an article in July 2019, stating “It is established that BLA (Baloch Liberation Army) commanders, in the past, had sought medical treatment in India’s hospitals, often under disguise or with fake identities.” Pakistan designated the BLA as a terrorist organization in 2006.
The Hindu article referred to BLA’s militant commander who “was based in Delhi for at least six months in 2017,” to receive “extensive treatment for kidney-related ailments.” It is known that Baloch chieftains “maintained warm personal ties with various Indian political figures,” the article said.
Some of the related evidence has been made public. Many other concrete forms of evidence show that India backs terrorism in Pakistan, although they have not yet been released for a variety of reasons, said a source close to the situation in Balochistan, says the newspaper.
India employs a consistent double standard toward terrorism, said Ye Hailin, deputy director of the National Institute of International Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “If you look at India’s media and think tank reports, you will find that their descriptions of the terrorist attacks in Balochistan are completely different from those of the situation in Kashmir,” Ye told the Global Times.
For years, China has been helping in economic development that has benefited local people through various investment and assistance projects across Pakistan.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), for instance, is a flagship project under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) proposed by China. Launched in 2013, it connects Pakistan’s southwest Gwadar Port with Kashi in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, contributing to Pakistan’s infrastructure through energy, transport, and industrial cooperation.
However, these projects became a target of some terrorist forces in Pakistan, who “believe that if they can hurt the Chinese nationals in Pakistan through terrorism, the BRI and CPEC projects can be compromised.
The suicide bombing which took place outside the University of Karachi’s Confucius Institute on April 26, 2022, was a typical tragedy targeting Chinese nationals in Pakistan, which killed three Chinese nationals and a local driver. The BLA claimed responsibility for the bombing the following day, and warned of more deadly attacks on Chinese targets.
Trying to split and destabilize Pakistan is the main purpose behind India’s backing of terrorism in regions like Balochistan, said Liu Zongyi, director of the Center for South Asia Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. “And now there is another purpose: To obstruct and undermine the construction of the CPEC.”
Balochistan is a key region of the CPEC, Liu said. “India supports separatism and terrorism in Balochistan and other regions in Pakistan, so as to weaken both Pakistan and China,” he told the Global Times. “From the beginning, India has seen the CPEC as a geopolitical project that will hurt its so-called new opportunities in South Asia.”
To help maintain regional stability in some Pakistani areas, apart from the current anti-terrorism cooperation, China has made great efforts to support local economic and social development, and improve the living standards of the people there, trying hard to eliminate the root causes of terrorism and separatism at the source, Liu said.
