Pakistan, May 31 -- The recent attack on a train in Quetta has once again brought into focus a question that should not really require much debate. The Baluchistan Liberation Army, or BLA, is a terrorist organisation and ought to be treated as one.

The train attack was not some isolated eruption of violence. It was part of a pattern that has become all too familiar. Over the years, the BLA has attacked railway stations, passenger buses, universities, diplomatic facilities, economic institutions, foreign nationals and ordinary civilians. The victims have included labourers, teachers, students, travellers and workers whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The attack on the Jaffer Express, in the recent past, demo...