India, March 25 -- The hijacking of a train in Baluchistan appeared to mark a new stage in Pakistan's internal security evolution. Clearly, there are objective factors that have energised a long festering insurgency in that province into mounting such major and coordinated operations. Both in Baluchistan and in the tribal tracts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, there has been a decided uptick in terrorist militancy and related incidents. In aggregate terms this uptick means that terrorist incidents are at a decade-long high. This provides an additional context to an extraordinary incident such as the hijacking of an entire train with hundreds of passengers and being resolved only after tens of fatalities.

Some accounts imply a qualitative...