Fact Check: Video Of BLA Leader Warning China And Pakistan Is Old And Not Linked To Jaffar Express Hijack

A viral video of a Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) leader warning China and Pakistan was falsely linked to the 2025 Jaffar Express hijack.

Screenshot of an Instagram post that wrongly shared a 2029 video as footage from the Jaffar Express hijack.

Source : Instagram screenshot

On 11 March 2025, Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) insurgents hijacked the Jaffar Express in Pakistan, blowing up the railway track en route from Quetta to Peshawar and killing military personnel (here, here, here, and here). Pakistani media reported that security forces rescued over 300 passengers, but 21 hostages were killed. Four Frontier Corps personnel also died, and 33 terrorists were eliminated. Amidst this, a video is going viral on social media (here, here, and here), which claims to show a BLA leader calling the attack a “clear message to China and Pakistan” to leave Balochistan. He warned Chinese officials, telling President Xi Jinping to “quit Balochistan or face retaliation,” and asserted that the CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) would fail. The post is being shared with claims that this is a BLA video message issued after the Pakistan train hijack 2025. Let’s verify the claim made in the post through this article.

Claim: The video shows a Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) leader issuing a warning to China and Pakistan after the 11 March 2025 Jaffar Express hijack.

Fact: The viral video dates back to May 2019 and was released by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) after they attacked the Pearl Continental Hotel in Gwadar on 11 May 2019. The video was meant to justify the attack, claiming it targeted Chinese and Pakistani interests in Balochistan. The viral clip has been edited and falsely linked to the 2025 Jaffar Express hijack. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.

To verify the claim, we performed a reverse image search using keyframes from the viral video. This led us to multiple social media posts from May 2019 (here and here) (archived) featuring a longer version of the same video. In the initial frames of this extended footage, the BLA leader states, “Our self-sacrificing squad, Majeed Brigade, attacked the Pearl Continental Hotel in Gwadar and inflicted heavy losses upon both Pakistan and China…” He again mentions the attack on the Pearl Continental Hotel around 45 seconds into the longer version of the video. However, this part has been edited out in the viral clip.

Based on clues from the social media posts, we used relevant keywords to search further and found multiple reports (here, here, and here) featuring a screenshot from the same video, dating back to May 2019. According to these reports, the video was released just days after four members of the Baloch Liberation Army’s Majeed Brigade stormed a five-star hotel in Gwadar and engaged in a 26-hour battle with Pakistani commandos. The deadly attack on 11 May 2019 at the luxury hotel heightened security concerns over Beijing’s major development projects in Pakistan, including a strategic deep-sea port.

We found multiple media reports on the attack and siege at the Zaver Pearl-Continental Hotel in Gwadar, which can be read here, here, and here.

To sum up,  a 2019 video of a BLA leader warning China and Pakistan after the Gwadar hotel attack is edited and shared falsely linking it with the 2025 Jaffar Express hijack.

[This story was originally published by Factly, as part of the Shakti Collective. Except for the headline and excerpt, this story has not been edited by ABP LIVE staff.]