Illegal gold mining: Several injured in people-police clash in Nowshera

NOWSHERA: The district administration launched an operation against illegal gold mining along the banks of the Indus River in Jabi area in Nizampur on Saturday.

Additional Deputy Commissioner Bashir Ahmad along with a police party led the operation.

As soon as the joint operation began at Jabi, people made announcements over loudspeakers in mosques that prompted hundreds of locals to gather at the riverbank. The enraged crowd took the administration, police, and mineral department officials hostage, and pelted them with stones and

Nowshera Deputy Commissioner Irfanullah Mehsud and Assistant Commissioner Jehangira Zahra Noor said that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s Mines and Mineral Department had initiated an operation against illegal gold mining in the Indus River.

They said that 250 excavators and heavy machinery used in illegal gold mining had been removed. However, around 50 excavators remain active in Jabi and Mandori area.

He said that during a raid led by ADC Bashir Ahmad, Assistant Commissioner Jehangira, Zahra Noor, and others, the machinery used for illegal gold mining was made inoperative. As the operation continued, announcements were made in the local mosques, and a large crowd, including men, elders, and children, rushed to the scene and took the officials hostage.

According to police sources, the mob was led by individuals named Janas, Jawad, Tauqeer, and Attaullah. The crowd also threw the vehicles of ADC Bashir Ahmad and SHO Nizampur Abdul Wahid by and damaged them.

During the incident, DSP Akora Riaz Khan, Deputy Director Majid Ali Khan, and two police officers, Ali Khan and Constable Ameen Khan, along with eight mineral department officials, were injured in the incident. Ten injured individuals were shifted to Qazi Hussain Medical Complex, and DSP Akora was taken to DHQ Hospital, Nowshera.

The operation was later halted.

Meanwhile, the DC said that a mineral auction for gold extraction from the Kabul and Indus Rivers would take place on October 10, and unauthorized mining in the area would be banned strictly.

The police have registered a case and started an investigation. The Kabul and Indus rivers, which are flowing in Nowshera, contained gold in the sediments and sands. The government is going to regulate the mining of gold as illegal activity is causing huge loss to the national exchequer.