MIANWALI: The illegal excavation work on the Indus river banks for placer gold at Dubki near Kalabagh has been stopped after a raid by Assistant Commissioner Isakhel.

The district government has banned illegal excavation of minerals by imposing Section 144 but some people from the KP are still involved in the activity. On a tip-off, AC Isakhel Ghulam Murtaza raided a site near Dubki.

The AC along with Mines and Minerals Deputy Director Muhammad Umer and police confiscated six excavators with other material and arrested a machine operator. A case was registered with Kalabagh Police Station. The rest of the workers present there escaped towards the KP.

AC Ghulam Murtaza told Dawn that in search of placer gold, people from KP would cross the boundary into Punjab along with excavators and did illegal excavation during the night and hid their machinery in the mountains falling in the limits of KP during the day time. He added that a few days ago, they had raided the gold hunters, confiscated their excavation machines and uprooted their camps but some people were still doing illegal work.

WHEAT SMUGGLING: The district administration foiled another attempt to smuggle huge quantity of wheat to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the last 24 hours and confiscated four trailers near Harnoli on Mianwali-Multan road, raising the tally of confiscated vehicles to nine with recovery of nearly 4,000 wheat bags of 100kg each.

On Friday, the DC Mianwali himself had confiscated five wheat trucks on secret information about illegal trafficking of wheat on Mianwali-Lahore road. He found trucks parked at a petrol pump near Wan-Bhachran and recovered 2,000 wheat bags of 100kg each. The wheat bags were hidden under luggage to deceive the authorities.

Now another four wheat trailers were intercepted by AC Piplan along with food department and police personnel near Harnoli on Mianwali-Multan road and seized 1,600 wheat bags of 100kg each.

DC Asad Abbas Magsi told Dawn that he himself had seized five trailers on Friday and later confiscated four more trailers belonging to smugglers who are using tampered permission documents to cross various district check posts.

“We verified these documents from the issuing authority that declined that it had issued any such letters. He said cases had been registered against nine persons with different police stations at Wan-Bhachran and Harnoli.

The 4,000 seized wheat bags have been handed over to the department.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2025