Dispute between departments over Warcha Mines escalates

Mineral Department allegedly seizes Warcha Mines of PMDC, registers cases against labourers

KHUSHAB:

The dispute between the Minerals Department and the Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation over Warcha Mines has escalated.

The Mineral Department had seized the Warcha Mines of the PMDC and also registered cases against labourers and even PMDC officers.

Thousands of miners are on the verge of starvation due to the closure of the Warcha Mines, country's second-largest chain of mines, which generates millions of rupees in revenue.

Hundreds of miners and PMDC employees protested against the action of the Department of Minerals and demanded reopening of the mines and withdrawal of cases against the labourers.

Talking to The Express Tribune on the occasion, the General Secretary of the Workers Union, Muhammad Sher Tahir, said that the British had brought our ancestors from Jhelum to work at the salt mines and had them settled near the Warcha Salt Mine in the year 1872.

The British gave inheritance rights of the salt mine.

In 1955, the then National Assembly of Pakistan upheld our rights as legal status. Then in 1977 the then federal government approved the inheritance rights through a gazette notification.

“Now the Department of Minerals illegally allotted by colluding with some private people and an official of the Minerals Department who brutally tortured us and our women with the help from some heavy elite force of the police on the orders of a provincial minister to seize the PMDC and the hereditary rights of the miners,” said Muhammad Sher Tahir.

“One miner was injured while protesting against the illegal operation. When we protested, cases were registered against our workers and women,” he added. The General Secretary of the CBA Union of the Warcha Mines, Allah Bakhsh, told The Express Tribune that the government should be the protector of the rights of the workers, “but we are being oppressed and abused”.

Millions of people are involved in the salt business not only in the district but across the country as well.

Asghar Iqbal, assistant manager of the Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation, Warcha Mines, told The Express Tribune that a deputy director of the Department of Minerals, along with some private people and a heavy contingent of police, arrived to occupy the mines.

He alleged that they used heavy machinery to demolish the walls of the land of our department.

Asghar Iqbal said that since the registered miners of the department and all the local workers had already been protesting against the closure of mines, they offered a fierce resistance to protect their inherited rights. He further added that the legal aspect was ignored in all these proceedings.

The assistant manager of the PMDC said that they entered the bungalows of the PMDC officers without a search warrant and vandalized the bungalows, and an FIR was also lodged against those who had been offering resistance.

He said that all these incidents proved complete partiality, and these people had been trying to destroy the PMDC, which was giving huge revenue to the government from here.

Deputy Director Rafiullah Niazi told the media that rent would be paid for using the PMDC land.

Police registered two separate cases against the accused on the complaint of the Deputy Director of the Minerals Department, Khushab, Rafiullah Khan, accusing the protestors of carrying firearms and sticks and of blocking the road leading to the mines on the instigation of the PMDC project manager.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 18^th, 2022.