QUETTA: The Balochistan’s Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) on Saturday claimed to have killed five terrorists in a joint operation conducted in the province’s Duki district.
“Five terrorists were killed during a joint operation with other law enforcement agencies in Duki’s Dhabar Pahari area,” the CTD said in a statement.
The communiqué stated that the killed terrorists belonged to a “banned organisation” and had been involved in “attacks on coal mines, security forces, and citizens”.
The CTD in the statement further said the slain terrorists’ bodies were shifted to the Duki Civil Hospital.
Lauding the counterterrorism action by the “CTD, FC [Frontier Constabulary] and other LEAs”, Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti expressed his satisfaction over the operation.
“State institutions are fully active against terrorism,” he said in a statement, pledging that “every conspiracy to destabilise Balochistan will be thwarted”.
CM Bugti said the provincial government was taking “every possible action” to protect people’s lives and property. “Indiscriminate action will also be taken against those facilitating the terrorists,” he added.
“Anti-peace elements will not be tolerated under any circumstances,” the chief minister asserted, vowing that the province’s “journey towards peace and development” would continue.
The CTD operation comes days after Chief of Army Staff General Asim Munir vowed to remove “whatever stands in the way of Pakistan’s progress” and reaffirmed the state’s determination to counter terrorism.
“Do Pakistan’s enemies think that a handful of terrorists can decide the fate of Pakistan?” he said, adding that “even ten generations of terrorists cannot harm Balochistan and Pakistan”.
In the security forces have intensified counterterrorism operations in the face of increasing attacks by militants, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces.
On Tuesday, three policemen were martyred and 20 others were injured as a blast targeted a vehicle of the Balochistan Constabulary in Balochistan’s Mastung district.
Militant violence and security operations intensified in the country in March, with the number of militant attacks surpassing 100 for the first time since November 2014, according to a report by the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (Picss).
Pakistan ranked second in the Global Terrorism Index 2025, with the number of deaths in terrorist attacks rising by 45 per cent over the past year to 1,081.
