Opinion | Jafar Express and Pakistan’s Security Lapse

And as I watched the coverage, it made me think. How often do we take peace for granted, until we see the price of its absence across the border? Here in Jammu and Kashmir, we have seen dark days. We’ve lived through curfews, bomb blasts, and fear. But things have changed. There’s a calm now, a sense of control.

The Jafar Express, a long-distance train journey from Quetta to Peshawar, turned into a horrifying tale of death and destruction when it was rocked by an explosion near Dera Murad Jamali. As someone who often keeps a close watch on Pakistan’s internal dynamics and their spillover into the region of Jammu and Kashmir, this news struck a nerve. It was not just a tragic event; it was a mirror held up to Pakistan’s deepening security vacuum. This was not the first time civilians paid the price for the State’s failure to control its fault lines, and I doubt it will be the last. What baffles me is how little introspection follows such incidents. In any other country, a terror attack on a moving train would spark a nationwide soul-searching. In Pakistan, it simply becomes another news cycle. The train that got hit was passing through two of Pakistan’s most restless regions: Balochistan, where cries for autonomy have echoed for decades, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, still reeling from the shadows of militancy. The Jafar Express blast is not just a reminder of Pakistan’s crumbling internal security. It is a reflection of what happens when governance collapses and extremism fills the vacuum.
And as I watched the coverage, it made me think. How often do we take peace for granted, until we see the price of its absence across the border? Here in Jammu and Kashmir, we have seen dark days. We’ve lived through curfews, bomb blasts, and fear. But things have changed. There’s a calm now, a sense of control. Yet when we see what’s happening next door, it reminds us of the thin line between peace and panic. Every few weeks, either a bomb goes off or a convoy is ambushed in Pakistan. Their people are caught in the middle of a deadly triangle: the military, the militants, and the politicians. And in all this, the common man has no idea who to trust. How can a nation, which cannot ensure the safety of its railway passengers, claim to be a stakeholder in Kashmir? When a government cannot protect its own citizens from attacks on a passenger train, what moral right does it have to preach about Kashmir? One cannot help but notice the irony. Pakistan tries to project itself as a guardian of Kashmiris, yet it cannot safeguard its own soil. Baloch rebels, TTP factions, and a growing list of non-state actors have turned Pakistan into a security nightmare. And with every passing incident, the mask slips a little more. The blast on the Jafar Express is not an isolated act of terror. It is part of a larger canvas, one painted with chaos, neglect, and misgovernance.
This is precisely why India must stay vigilant. Our fight is not only at the borders. It is also about narratives. Pakistan will continue to distract from its internal failures by invoking Kashmir. But truth, as they say, speaks for itself. When the world watches innocent passengers lose their lives in bombings on Pakistani soil, it begins to question the very credibility of a state that has long used terrorism as a tool of policy. Today, I write not with anger, but with conviction. That blast on the Jafar Express is not just about lives lost. It is about a nation lost. And while I pray for those innocent victims who boarded that train hoping to reach home, I also hope the world reads between the lines. Pakistan’s security lapse is not just its problem anymore. It is a regional reality we can no longer ignore.

The writer is a student activist and can be reached at soulofkashmir1@gmail.com