PESHAWAR: Tribal mine owners from Khyber district rejected the proposed Mines and Minerals Bill 2025 and declared it a deliberate effort by the Federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments to take hold of natural resources in the merged tribal districts.
Asghar Afridi, General Secretary Advocate Sameen Jan, Vice-President Malik Gulzar Afridi, Deputy Finance Secretary Hashmat Khan and others while talking to reporters here on Sunday termed the Bill as an attack on provincial autonomy and was equivalent to economic killing of Pakhtun community.
Minerals had always remained a provincial subject after the 18th Amendment and involvement of the Federal government undermined the rights of the provinces, they regretted.
They accused the government of drafting the bill secretly and without consultation with the tribal stakeholders’ like to deprive the three decades’ militancy hit tribal of earning three times meal for their families. Our forefathers protected the minerals for hundreds years and now the grasping policy of the Federal and provincial government is unacceptable, they remarked.
They maintained, we endorse all decisions of the provincial organization of Mines protection business and stand firm for the fight for our rights.
The protestors demanded the immediate withdrawal of what they said were anti-local trading and cruel Mines and Minerals Bill 2025 and threatened that if their demands were not met then they would extend their protest across the province.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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