ISLAMABAD: Six “terrorists” were killed during an intelligence-based operation in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province who were involved in attacks against civilians and law enforcers, the army’s media wing said on Saturday. 

The operation took place in Balochistan’s Kalat district on Mar. 29 on the reported presence of militants there, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the army’s media wing, said in a statement. 

“During the conduct of the operation, own troops effectively engaged the terrorists’ location and after an intense fire exchange, six terrorists were successfully neutralized,” the ISPR said. 

The army’s media wing said the slain militants were involved in recent “terrorist activities” in the area against law enforcement agencies and civilians. It said a sanitization operation was being conducted in the area to eliminate any other militants.

“Security forces of Pakistan, in step with the nation, remain determined to thwart attempts at sabotaging peace, stability and progress of Balochistan,” the statement said. 

The operation took place amid a surge in militancy in Balochistan, Pakistan’s mineral-rich province that borders Iran and Afghanistan. 

Earlier this month, militants belonging to the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) hijacked a passenger train in the province, holding hundreds of passengers hostage. 

The military launched an operation and, after a day-long standoff, rescued 354 captives and killed 33 insurgents. A final count showed 23 soldiers, three railway employees and five passengers had died in the attack.

The violence refused to die down, as days later three paramilitary soldiers among five people were killed in a suicide attack in Balochistan’s Nushki district. 

Balochistan has been the scene of a low-level insurgency for decades where separatist militants demand a greater share of the province’s natural resources and accuse the central government in Islamabad of exploiting them. 

Pakistan’s government and military refute the allegations, pointing to health, education and other projects that they say will boost Balochistan’s development. 

The province is Pakistan’s largest by landmass yet its most backward by almost all economic and social indicators. 

ISLAMABAD: Pakistanis are paying more than £1.7 billion ($2.19 billion) in zakat annually, with the vast majority of recipients being women, according to a study released this week by researchers from the UK-based International Center for Tax and Development (ICTD) and Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Zakat is a form of obligatory almsgiving in Islam and one of its five central pillars. It requires Muslims who meet a certain wealth threshold to donate a fixed portion, usually 2.5 percent of their savings and assets annually, to those in need.
The findings of the study are based on a 2024 survey of 7,500 Sunni Pakistanis, shedding new light on the scale and social role of zakat, according to a post shared on the ICTD website.
“In a newly published factsheet, we estimate that self-identified Sunnis in Pakistan pay over 619 billion rupees (GBP 1.7 billion) in zakat annually,” the study’s authors wrote. “In 2024, the average zakat giver paid about 15,000 rupees (about GBP 43) with over 50 million Pakistanis contributing.”
“Our data suggests that every year, more money is distributed to people in need in Pakistan through zakat than through the largest state-led cash transfer program, the Benazir Income Support Programme,” they added.
Pakistan’s Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) has a 2024/2025 budget of Rs598.7 billion ($2.16 billion), while zakat contributions, largely unregulated and directly disbursed by individuals, exceed that amount.
The federal excise duty and even official development aid received by Pakistan in recent years fall short of annual zakat totals, according to the study.
The research also reveals that Pakistan’s official zakat fund, established in the 1980s for compulsory collection and disbursed through state-appointed councils, plays a negligible role.
“Most Pakistanis prefer to bypass the state fund — unsurprising in a context where individuals have low trust in the government,” the authors said. “The national state fund collects only a fiftieth of what we estimate to be contributed annually, while survey respondents overwhelmingly noted that they prefer to manage their own zakat giving. In our survey, we find that less than 2 percent of zakat givers are going through the state fund.”
The study said most zakat is given directly to individuals, or via mosques, schools, and, to a lesser extent, NGOs, bypassing formal state channels.
More than half of the survey respondents reported giving zakat exclusively to female recipients, with a particular preference for widows, who were perceived as especially economically vulnerable.
The study highlights that private religious giving is filling critical welfare gaps in Pakistan, particularly for marginalized groups, in the absence of robust state social protection systems.