On early Sunday morning, May 24, 2026 — Just a few days before the festival of Eid al-Adha — on a quiet morning in Quetta’s Chaman Pathak neighborhood.  An explosive-laden vehicle ripped through a shuttle service carrying passengers, from the Quetta Cantt station –  killing at least 24 and 70+ wounded, mostly military personnel, laborers and families, that were headed to the Peshawar-bound Jaffar Express. These were ordinary Pakistanis looking forward to getting back to their hometowns for the Eid holidays. The Balochistan Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for the attacks. This tragedy comes just around the first anniversary of the Khuzdar school bus bombing  — killing 8 civilians, injuring dozens, most of the fatalities being school girls. This attack was also connected to separatist militants in the province. Celebrated by journalists, talking heads and govt officials across the eastern border along with their social media commentariat – blinded by nationalism.

Jaffar express sounds familiar as that train was also attacked a little over a year ago, March of 2025, early in the holy month of Ramadan. That attack orchestrated by the BLA, killed over 60. It seems like attacking Pakistan around the holidays is the M.O of these militant groups and their handlers.

There is grief across Pakistan as terrorism has gone up, patience is wearing thin among the general public with the states inaction against these adversaries of the nation. The Dhurandars are running up their kill streak, maiming innocent Pakistanis across the country, trying to instill fear, chaos and division. There is palpable frustration among the citizenry due to government incompetence and lenience towards ethno-fascism and a failure to protect its citizens from this regional proxy war. Will the Dhurandars be brought to justice for the mass murder of innocent civilians or will the Dhurandar-ing continue with more violence, terrorism and bloodshed across Arz-e-Pak to no avail.

Here’s to another somber Eid and world peace.