LAHORE/PESHAWAR: Dozens of gunmen from criminal gangs kidnapped seven Pakistani police from a checkpoint in the normally peaceful province of Punjab, officials said.
The incident happened Saturday night in the Much area of Sadiqabad in Punjab province.
“Around 40 dacoits attacked the checkpost and kidnapped seven police officials,” the district police chief, Sohail Zafar Chattha, told AFP.
He said law enforcement agencies had driven bandits out of the area a few years ago but they started operating again recently, shuttling between Much and the border towns of neighboring Sindh province.
The outlaws recently killed a police officer in the town of Ghotki in Sindh.
A strong police contingent backed by armored personnel carriers was mounting an operation to rescue the seven policemen, Chattha added.
Bandits have been active in the border areas of Sindh and Punjab provinces for decades.
The military launched a full-scale operation against them in Sindh in the early 1990s but they resurfaced after successive governments failed to maintain law and order in the province.
The kidnapping, and further fighting between insurgents and the military in the northwest of the country, underscored the range of security problems facing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation of 180 million, is beset by a Taleban insurgency in the northwest and a separatist insurgency in the west. Murders, kidnappings and extortion by criminal gangs are common. Sectarian violence is growing.
Sunday’s attack, by gunmen from different gangs, targeted a police checkpoint in Obaro, inside Punjab but at the intersection of three provinces, said District Police Officer Sohail Chatha.
“We have launched a rescue operation,” he said.
A statement from Sharif’s office said he took “serious notice” of the kidnapping.
Police are poorly trained, paid and equipped. Rather than instituting reforms, Sharif’s government has handed much of the responsibility for security to the powerful military, which has a history of mounting coups and is frequently accused of extrajudicial killings.
In separate developments, the military said air strikes killed 44 insurgents on Saturday in Khyber and North Waziristan, two remote, mountainous northwestern areas bordering Afghanistan.
The military said five soldiers and 27 militants were killed in fighting in Khyber on Thursday. Access to the areas is restricted and it is difficult to independently verify casualty figures.
Criminals kidnap 7 Pak policemen in Punjab attack
Criminals kidnap 7 Pak policemen in Punjab attack
Bangladesh sends record 750,000 workers to Saudi Arabia in 2025
- Latest data shows 16% surge of Bangladeshis going to the Kingdom compared to 2024
- Bangladesh authorities are working on sending more skilled workers to Saudi Arabia
DHAKA: Bangladesh sent over 750,000 workers to Saudi Arabia in 2025, marking the highest overseas deployment to a single country on record, its labor bureau said on Friday.
Around 3.5 million Bangladeshis live and work in Saudi Arabia, sending home more than $5 billion every year. They have been joining the Saudi labor market since the 1970s and are the largest expatriate group in the Kingdom.
Last year, Saudi Arabia retained its spot as the top destination for Bangladeshi workers, with more than two-thirds of over 1.1 million who went abroad in 2025 choosing the Kingdom.
“More than 750,000 Bangladeshi migrants went to Saudi Arabia last year,” Ashraf Hossain, additional director-general at the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training, told Arab News.
“So far, it’s the highest number for Bangladesh, in terms of sending migrants to Saudi Arabia or any other particular country in a single year.”
The latest data also showed a 16 percent increase from 2024, when about 628,000 went to the Kingdom for work, adding to the largest diaspora community outside Bangladesh.
Authorities have focused on sending more skilled workers to Saudi Arabia in recent years, after the Kingdom launched in 2023 its Skill Verification Program in Bangladesh, which aims to advance the professional competence of employees in the Saudi labor market.
Bangladesh has also increased the number of certification centers, allowing more candidates to be verified by Saudi authorities.
“Our focus is now on increasing safe, skilled and regular migration. Skilled manpower export to Saudi Arabia has increased in the last year … more than one-third of the migrants who went to Saudi Arabia did so under the Skill Verification Program by the Saudi agency Takamol,” Hossain said.
“Just three to four months ago, we had only been to certify 1,000 skilled workers per month. But now, we can conduct tests with 28 (Saudi-approved) centers across the country, which can certify around 60,000 skilled workforces (monthly) for the Kingdom’s labor market.”
On Thursday, the BMET began to provide training in mining, as Bangladesh aims to also start sending skilled workers for the sector in Saudi Arabia.
“There are huge demands for skilled mining workers in Saudi Arabia as it’s an oil-rich country,” Hossain said.
“We are … trying to produce truly skilled workers for the Saudi labor market.”
In October, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh signed a new employment agreement, which enhances worker protection, wage payments, as well as welfare and health services.
It also opens more opportunities in construction and major Vision 2030 projects, which may create up to 300,000 new jobs for Bangladeshi workers in 2026.
