Reporting snapshot · 14 November 2026 (Asia/Karachi). The decision was made at a press conference in Peshawar on 14 November, and no notification, list of cancelled leases or order constituting the task force or the judicial commission had been published when this was checked, so the legal effect on the leases cannot yet be read from the record. The figures below are the governor's own account of a trade that has not been audited.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s governor announced at a press conference in Peshawar on Saturday, 14 November, that the provincial government had cancelled all gold mining lease agreements in the province and suspended mining activities, directing leaseholders and contractors to remove their heavy machinery from the affected areas within a week. Radio Pakistan, the state news service, reported the cancellation of every lease agreement, and Geo News reported the immediate suspension of mining across the province with the same one-week deadline, from a press conference the broadcaster said the governor held with the chief secretary, the inspector general of police Zulfiqar Hameed and the provincial adviser for mines and minerals.
The decision follows the ambush on 11 November, when a police party was attacked as it travelled to raid an illegal gold mining network near Darbokach, in the riverine belt between Kohat and Karak. KhabarWire reported that day that police and the Rescue 1122 emergency service put the death toll at 11 policemen, including the Gambat deputy superintendent of police Haider Zaman and a sub-inspector, with 12 wounded. The accounts of the toll still differ: Geo News reported 10 policemen martyred and 18 militants killed, The Express Tribune recorded that the raid was aimed at an operation against illegal mining and that militants belonging to Fitna al-Khawarij, the term Pakistani officials use for the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, ambushed the police party as it returned. KhabarWire is following the crackdown in its KP gold mining hub.
The size of the trade, as the province describes it
Kundi put a value on what the province says it is stopping. The governor said the illegal extraction was producing about Rs4.2 billion worth of gold a month, and that a single mining block had been leased for Rs4.92 billion over ten years, Geo News reported. About 90 kilogrammes of gold were being taken out of the area every month, and around 49,000 people were working in mining, The Express Tribune reported, which also counted 3,000 excavators, 1,600 dumpers and 200 heavy loaders at work. Geo News put the fleet differently, at 8,350 tractors with tractor-trolleys and 1,730 heavy dumpers, and the two accounts also differ on which blocks are involved: the governor named two mineral blocks in Kohat, C and D, while the provincial minerals adviser said blocks A, B and D were involved in October 2024 and cited contracts worth Rs1.2 billion in Tarbela, Rs1.3 billion near Attock and Rs1.11 billion in Kohat.
The adviser, who said placer gold enters the rivers through their natural flow from Gilgit and other areas, told the press conference that mining money had been reaching criminal elements and terrorist organisations. Kundi said the damage ran both ways, with illegal mining costing the national exchequer and harming the environment, Radio Pakistan reported.
Money to Afghanistan and the names of politicians
The sharpest allegation was that the trade is not merely a tax offence. About 80 per cent of the money generated was going to Afghanistan and was being used to finance terrorism and activity against Pakistan, The Express Tribune and Geo News both reported. Kundi alleged a nexus between the mafia and the militants, saying mining operators paid militants extortion money in exchange for protection, and named the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan as receiving money from the gold mines in Kohat, with Afghan commanders collecting the extortion payments. Radio Pakistan added detail: a Khwarji commander had been extracting 800,000 rupees from locals and up to four million rupees from non-local miners.
Kundi said 12 political figures had provided political backing for the activity, and named some of them. Both outlets named the former minister Aftab Alam, Shehryar Afridi and Khurram Zeeshan; The Express Tribune also named Amjad Afridi and a brother of former chief minister Sohail Afridi, and Geo News named Sajid Iqbal and Naveed, described as a brother of a former chief minister. The governor said no first information reports had been registered against the people he named, so the allegations stand on the record as statements by the governor rather than as charges.
Deadlines, a task force and a judicial commission
Two deadlines and two new bodies now sit on the province’s list. Contractors have a week to pull their machinery out of the mining areas, and The Express Tribune said they had been told to leave the province within a week, with strict action to follow once the deadline passes. A new policy for gold mining is promised within three weeks. The provincial government has approved a task force named after the deputy superintendent of police killed in the Kohat ambush, made up of police, district administration officials and others, and has decided on a judicial commission which Geo News said would investigate both illegal gold mining and the ambush itself. Geo News described the governor’s warning of zero tolerance, and The Express Tribune reported his statement that accountability would apply to everyone, whether political or not.
The context is a province that has been under governor’s rule for a month: Kundi said the province had completed one month under emergency measures and that maintaining law and order was its top priority, and KhabarWire reported the transfer of power to an advisory council when it began in October. Alongside the crackdown, the governor made the case for the lawful version of the trade: he said the two-day Pakistan Minerals Investment Forum in Islamabad had drawn delegations from across the world, that the province had significant mineral reserves, and that it would seek an agreement on minerals better than the one involving Reko Diq, The Express Tribune reported. The federal government was courting the same investors at the forum, which KhabarWire reported on its closing day.
What is not settled is the legal one. Because the announcement covers every lease and every mining activity, it reaches the legal holders of those leases as well as the illegal operators, and no notification listing the cancelled leases, the companies affected or the compensation position had been published. No notification constituting the task force or the judicial commission had appeared, no reply from the leaseholders had been reported, and the money and gold figures the governor quoted are the government’s account of a market that has never been measured.
