Gemstone extraction: Controversial Gilgit-Baltistan mining firm shutting down

Mohsin Industries, owned by a HK national, has been laying off employees.

GILGIT:

Following a tremendous uproar in the Gilgit-Baltistan legislature about its licensing, the gemstone mining firm Mohsin Industries may finally be shutting down, with several employees, including some of its senior most management being laid off in recent days, according to sources.

“There is a high chance that the company may pack up in the near future,” said one source who wished to remain anonymous.

Mohsin Industries is owned by Wang Zunyu, a Hong Kong national who moved to Gilgit-Baltistan three years ago to start a gemstone mining company. Wang had converted to Islam and married a Gilgiti woman. Wang owns a company known as Bao-Billion Mining Group, of which Mohsin Industries is a Pakistani affiliate.

Wang had hired hundreds of locals for the company and recruited a man named Abid Baig, an influential local resident, as the president. Baig was reported to have been vehement in allowing a company owned by a foreign national to mine gemstones in Gilgit-Baltistan since he said it would provide job opportunities to local people.

In June 2011, Mohsin Industries was granted a gemstone mining licence by the Gilgit-Baltistan government, an action that cause an uproar in the province’s Legislative Assembly since the legislature had already banned the provincial government from issuing new licences. In a resolution passed by the assembly, Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister Mehdi Shah was accused of “secretly” and illegally granting the licence to Mohsin Industries.

The chief minister has insisted that the licence was granted by the federal government and that he had nothing to do with it.

Several members of the province’s Metals, Minerals and Gems Association have been opposed to the manner in which Mohsin Industries was granted its licence and have threatened to protest against the government if those mining rights are not withdrawn.

The Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Court is also conducting hearings into a writ petition challenging the mining rights granted to Mohsin Industries.

All these hearings, however, may not be necessary. Sources familiar with the situation say that the company has laid of dozens of employees and even Baig is reported to have left the company after a falling out with Wang. Despite several attempts by The Express Tribune to reach him, Baig did not respond to requests for comment.

The Express Tribune also tried to reach the company’s media office, but learnt that the media section of the firm had been closed.

Meanwhile, sources also say that Wang, who now goes by the name of Mohsin, divorced his Gilgiti wife ‘after they developed some differences.’ This was Wang’s second marriage, the first of which he ended in order to marry the woman in Gilgit.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 5^th, 2012.