Baloch Liberation Army views the exchange as a symbol of exploitation of ‘occupied’ Balochistan by Pakistan and China.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), which claimed Monday morning’s attack on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), Karachi, has stated that if it wanted, it could have caused hundreds of civilian fatalities in Karachi, but its intention was only to attack the PSX, and hence its men did not attack any other civilian infrastructure despite they being a more “easy” target.
The BLA has termed the PSX the symbol of the economic exploitation of “occupied” Balochistan by Pakistan and China. BLA is a Balochistan based separatist group that is engaged in an armed fight with the Pakistan army.
After the attack took place on Monday, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, while addressing the Pakistani Parliament on Tuesday, had said that he had “no doubt” that the attack was done by India and that they (the BLA) wanted to repeat in Karachi what had happened in Mumbai (referring to the 26/11 Mumbai attack that was carried out by the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and ISI operatives).
In a statement shared with international media after the Karachi attack, the BLA stated that their targets were the members of the Pakistan armed forces and not any unarmed civilians.
“The four martyrs who died in the attack were well armed and had gone prepared for a long haul. They crossed many civilian buildings and other infrastructure in Karachi before reaching the PSX. If they wanted, they could have easily killed hundreds of innocent civilians, but they did not. We never targeted any unarmed men. Our main aim, while deciding to target the PSX, was to attack because it is a symbol of the economic exploitation of Balochistan that Pakistan and China are carrying out. The world has so far ignored what is happening in Balochistan. Now, hopefully the world will take more interest in Balochistan,” Dosten Baloch, a prominent member of the BLA, said in the media statement.
Commenting on Imran Khan’s statement, the BLA said that ascribing any of BLA’s attacks to India, was an age-old practice of successive Pakistani prime ministers.
“If we wanted to repeat what happened in Mumbai in 2008 as Imran Khan has stated, we could have easily done that by entering the libraries, banks, railway stations, public places, malls around the PSX that have no security, rather than attempting to enter the well-guarded PSX. Imran Khan wants the world to believe that we are being supported by an outside country (India) so that the world does not get the real picture of what is happening in Balochistan with China and Pakistan treating the Balochis worse than the colouredwere treated in the West. We wish India had supported us at least when China, to help Pakistan, used its power to declare us as a terrorist group. It is just a fiction, created by the ISI, that India is supporting us, a story that is being circulated for years now,” the statement said.
The U.S. Department of State had declared the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) as a terror group in July last year. This was done, according to official sources, to keep Pakistan “happy” so that it can help the U.S. in executing the peace agreement with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
BLA spokesperson Jeehand Baloch said that the purpose of attacking the stock exchange was to give a message to the Pakistan army that the Balochs are capable of carrying out attacks anywhere in the country.
“Not only Pakistan, but China is also involved in every step of exploitation of Balochistan’s resources. We had warned China to cease her expansionist and exploitative ambitions. In order to stop China from advancing, the Majeed brigade has already attacked Chinese engineers in Dalbandin, Chinese consulate in Karachi and an attack on the Chinese delegates at PC Hotel at Gwadar. China holds about 40% equity in the Pakistan stock exchange through the Shanghai stock exchange, Shenzhen stock exchange and China financial future exchange. That is why Monday’s attack was not only aimed at Pakistan, but it was also an attack on Chinese economic interests and if China continues to take part in Balochistan’s exploitation, they will face more attacks,” he said.
“Targeting civilians is not a part of our war-philosophy and unlike our enemy, we do not measure the rate of success by counting the innocent lives taken. During the PSX attack, there were clear-cut orders for the attackers not to target civilians, neither use high explosives which could jeopardize the lives of civilians. We chose the day when there were almost no civilians in the premises of the main building. Our men accomplished their mission with the least casualties to civilianlives,” he added.