The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI’s Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
In a recent article, a leading Pakistani newspaper examined growing links between Sindhi and Baluchi secessionist organizations fighting for independence from Pakistan of the Sindh and Baluchistan provinces, respectively. The article comes following a number of attacks on Chinese interests in Karachi.
On May 12, 2022, Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army (SRA) – a little-known terror group fighting for the independence of Sindh from Pakistan – took responsibility for an attack on a vehicle of Pakistan’s Coast Guard in Karachi, a coastal city and provincial capital of Sindh province. At least 12 people were wounded in the attack.[1]
In a statement posted on Telegram, SRA also observed: “Pakistani forces and China are occupying the lands, seaports, and islands, along the entire coastal strip of Sindhi Ocean. The state [security] forces are forcibly making the Sindhi activists disappear. Punjab [the influential province that rules Pakistan] is destroying Sindh by shutting down [diverting] the water of the Indus River, and is settling outsiders in large numbers, thereby turning Sindhis into a minority on their own lands.”[2]
A low-intensity secessionist militancy has been underway in Sindh province for decades. It has not posed a serious threat to the integrity of Pakistan. However, Sindhi secessionist groups, frequently re-emerging under new names, have been worried about increasing Chinese investment in Pakistan, especially as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a 3,000-km Chinese infrastructure network project.
In September 2022, a Sindhi militant group attacked a dental clinic in the Sadar area of Karachi, killing Ronald Raymond Chou, a Chinese-origin Pakistani, and wounding two other members of his family. Once again, Soreh Sindhi, spokesman of the little-known secessionist group, Sindhudesh People’s Army (SPA), claimed responsibility for the attack.[3]