An old video showing separatist militant group Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) threatening Pakistan and China is being falsely linked by viral social media posts to the recent incident of hijacking of the Jaffar Express in Pakistan's Balochistan province.
BOOM's fact-check reveals that the viral video was released by the BLA in 2019, and it shows them elaborating on their motive behind an attack on a hotel in Pakistan.
On March 11, 2025, Jaffar Express—a passenger train running from Quetta to Peshawar—was attacked by BLA militants, leading to the death of at least 21 passengers, 33 militants and 4 security officials.
The viral video of 1.52 minutes shows a militant with his face covered, saying, "The motive of our attack was very clear. It was a simple and clear message to China and Pakistan to withdraw immediately from Balochistan." The man further said that China had not paid importance to the message their leader General Aslam Balooch has sent, which led to their attack.
One of the viral captions being shared with this video on X states, "After Hijacking #jaffar_express And taking 200 person as hostage, Balooch Liberation army (#BLA) issued a chilling warning to China and Pakistan: "Withdraw from #Balochistan if you don't want to die". He warned Xi jinping that #CPEC will never be completed and quitting is in their best interest. BLA is brave and courageous. They are not terrorists but freedom fighters."
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Fact Check
BOOM divided the viral video into several keyframes and ran reverse image searches on them using Google lens. Our search led us to an extended version of the viral video on X posted on May 20, 2019.
The 2 minutes 20 second video was captioned as, "Baloch Libertion Army #BLA issues warning to President Xi Jinping of #China: "U still have time to quit #Balochistan or u will witness retaliation from #Baloch sons & daughters who will turn Balochistan into your graveyard."
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In this particular version of the video, the militant can be heard mentioning an attack by the self-sacrificing Majeed sqad on the Pearl Continental Hotel in Gwadar twice— once at the beginning, and then at the 0:46 mark. We noticed the mention of the attack on the Pearl Continental Hotel in Gwadar has been edited out in the viral video to support the false claim.
Taking a cue from this, we ran a related keyword search about BLA's attack on the hotel and found a news report published by The Balochistan Post on May 19, 2019 which carried a screenshot similar to the viral visuals.
This article reported that the video was released four days after four members of the Baloch Liberation Army’s Majeed Brigade attacked the Pearl Continental Hotel in Gwadar on May 11, 2019, leading to a 26-hour-long battle with Pakistani commandos. The article adds that the video shows the BLA commander threatening the Chinese president Xi Jinping and Pakistan, and telling them to withdraw from Balochistan.
The report further stated the video—showing the BLA commander surrounded by heavily armed individuals—was emailed to journalists and had spread on social media. The attack had then raised security concerns about China's plan to build a strategic deep-sea port.
ETV Bharat had also published a news report on the video released by BLA in 2019.
