PESHAWAR: Unidentified gunmen abducted seven policemen from a check post on Monday in Pakistan’s northwestern district of Bannu, police said, as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province battles a rise in militant attacks on cops and other government officials. 

Pakistan’s northwest has seen a rise in militant attacks in recent months, which Islamabad says are mostly carried out by Afghan nationals and their facilitators and by Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant groups who cross over into Pakistan using safe haven in Afghanistan. 

The Taliban government in Kabul says Pakistan’s security challenges are a domestic issue and cannot be blamed on the neighbor.

Police data shows 75 policemen have been killed and 113 injured in militant attacks and targeted assassinations in 2024 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan.

“Armed men abducted seven police personnel from the Rocha checkpoint in the jurisdiction of Utmanzai Police Station in Bannu district,” District Police Officer (DPO) Zia Uddin told Arab News, saying up to 40 gunmen first surrounded the checkpoint in the mountainous area of Sub-Division Wazir on Monday evening.

“The armed men abducted seven police personnel from the Rocha checkpoint in the jurisdiction of Utmanzai Police Station in Bannu district.”

The militants also took away all weapons and equipment at the checkpoint. 

 “Four police personnel escaped as they were not present at the location at the time,” the DPO added. 

The Pakistani government and security officials have said repeatedly that such attacks have risen in recent months, many of them claimed by the TTP and launched from Afghan soil.

The TTP is separate from the Afghan Taliban movement, but pledges loyalty to the Islamist group that now rules Afghanistan after US-led international forces withdrew in 2021.

Islamabad says TTP uses Afghanistan as a base and says the ruling Taliban administration has provided safe havens to the group close to the border. The Taliban deny this.

ISLAMABAD: Tens of thousands of workers have lost their jobs as over 50,000 power looms shut down in Pakistan’s Faisalabad district over two years due to soaring electricity prices, an industry stakeholder said over the weekend, with officials pledging to explore viable solutions.

Power looms are mechanized devices that automate the weaving process. Faisalabad, located in Pakistan’s populous Punjab province, is the hub of the country’s textile industry, housing 125,000 power looms in its industrial zone.

The sector produces nearly 91% of Pakistan’s grey cloth, which also sells well in international market.

“In the last two years, over 200,000 workers have been rendered jobless in Faisalabad after the closure of some 50,000 power looms,” Saeed Ahmad, deputy secretary of the All Pakistan Cotton Power Looms Association, told Arab News. “The remaining industry is also on the verge of closure due to inefficient government policies.”

Ahmad said the hike in electricity prices over the last two years was the major factor behind the closures, as the per-unit cost of power had risen from Rs19 to Rs55, along with additional taxes.

“This is a small industry, and people cannot afford to pay millions in electricity bills each month,” he said, adding that the additional cost of doing business, such as higher interest rates, had also reached double digits.

Ahmad noted that while some power loom owners had switched to solar energy to run their industrial units, the option was prohibitively expensive for most.

“If you have to run the power loom, you cannot disconnect from the national grid because the solar station won’t work on cloudy days,” he explained.

Ahmad urged the government to lower electricity prices and provide loans to the industry to keep it operational.

“The power loom industry has been contributing to the national economy through textile exports, but the government is not willing to provide incentives to keep it afloat,” he said.

Speaking to Arab News, Javed Iqbal Malik, senior economic adviser to Punjab’s Industries, Commerce, Investment and Skills Development Department, acknowledged that the cost of doing business has increased due to a spike in electricity tariffs.

“I am not aware of the exact scale of the closure of power looms in Faisalabad, but one thing is for sure that the cost of doing business has increased and many businesses, including manufacturing, have become uneconomical, he said.

“We will look into the issue and discuss it with the industry to find out some viable solutions as this industry is vital for textile exports and economy,” he added.

Khurram Shahzad, a senior economist, said Pakistan’s economy had faced significant hardships in the last two years as the country narrowly avoided sovereign debt default, which also impacted the manufacturing sector.

“The manufacturing sector, including the power looms industry, has been affected by three factors: the interest rate, energy costs and taxes, all of which hit record highs in the last two years,” he told Arab News.

Shahzad noted that while the interest rate had declined in recent months, it remained in double digits.

He added that the government was promising to lower electricity tariffs to ease the cost of doing business.

“Taxes on the formal sector are expected to be reduced in the coming months with the stabilization of the economy, and this will help the manufacturing sector grow,” he said.