KARACHI: A senior official from the state-run Pakistan Minerals Development Corporation (PMDC) told a parliamentary committee this week mining operations in the restive Balochistan province are forced to pay extortion money to separatist militants, a committee member confirmed Tuesday.
The disclosure, made during the proceedings of the Senate Standing Committee on Privatization in Islamabad on Monday, underscored the security risks surrounding mining activity in Pakistan’s most resource-rich but underdeveloped province, particularly as the government seeks to attract private and foreign investment.
Senator Bilal Ahmed Khan, a member of the committee, confirmed the briefing’s details, saying the PMDC official raised the issue while discussing challenges linked to privatization amid an insurgency by militant outfits like the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA).
“The reason for what he said was that conditions in Balochistan are so bad that we [miners] pay money per ton to the Frontier Corps [on account of security provision] as well, and those from the BLA there also take money,” Khan told Arab News.
He said there were places where the PMDC did not work and had sublet operations.
“It is there that money is taken from the people who work,” he added.
Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, sits atop massive untapped reserves of copper, gold and coal, but has been the site of a decades-long insurgency by ethnic Baloch separatists who accuse the central government of exploiting the province’s resources, a charge denied by the state.
The BLA, an outlawed group designated as a terrorist organization by Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United States, has stepped up attacks in recent months, frequently targeting infrastructure, security forces and economic interests.
The Senate committee, chaired by Senator Afnan Ullah Khan, reviewed PMDC’s mineral portfolio, including coal mines spanning over 17,000 acres and exploration licenses covering more than 246,000 acres in Balochistan’s Pishin and Zhob districts.
Officials said mining land in the province is typically leased for 30 years, with PMDC earning about Rs2,500 per ton of coal compared to production costs of roughly Rs17,000.
The provincial administration of Balochistan, however, pushed back against suggestions of widespread extortion, though an official acknowledged militant groups have been involved in such activities.
“As far as mining by international firms is concerned, we have signed sovereign guarantees with them,” Shahid Rind, aide to the Chief Minister of Balochistan for media and political affairs, told Arab News, stressing that no such incidents had occurred at large projects run by international companies.
“The state and the Government of Balochistan are bound to provide security, and we are doing so,” he added. “Therefore, no such issues are occurring at those projects.”
Rind said the concerns raised at the Senate committee related primarily to small-scale mining carried out by local contractors, the majority of them from Balochistan.
“The district administration and the Frontier Corps are providing security to them, and currently no security charges are being levied,” Rind said, dismissing reports that the FC is also being paid by miners for security provision.
On allegations of extortion by the BLA, Rind said authorities had not received formal complaints.
“Regarding reports of extortion by the BLA, we became aware of these through the Senate committee proceedings,” he said, adding that mine owners had not approached law enforcement agencies.
He also said no cases had been registered with the Counterterrorism Department or Federal Investigation Agency, which he described as the appropriate forums for such matters.
Rind said an anti-extortion cell is active on the instructions of Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti and that security forces have killed “extortionists” in recent operations.
“More than 700 such extortionists both from Fitna-al-Hindustan and Fitna-al-Khawarij were killed in IBOs [intelligence-based operations],” he said, referring to the BLA and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, respectively.
“The State of Pakistan and the Government of Balochistan are committed to ensuring security, and we will continue to fulfil this responsibility,” he added.
