The security alarm around Saindak should trouble Islamabad for reasons that go well beyond one mine. State Minister for Interior Talal Chaudhry says authorities have ordered increased deployment around the copper and gold project after supply routes in Balochistan came under pressure. Saindak Metals Limited has denied reports that operations could be forced to shut down, insisting the project remains uninterrupted. Even so, the fact that furnace oil movement, transport confidence and route security have become urgent questions is warning enough.
There should be no ambiguity about the first principle. Armed attacks on workers, convoys, infrastructure and economic projects are indefensible. The state is obliged to protect investors, labourers and foreign personnel. No economy can function if roads become hostage to armed groups or if every shipment to a strategic project requires extraordinary security reassurance.
Saindak is operated by a Chinese state-owned company under a lease extended in 2022, and much of its output is exported to China. Balochistan also hosts Gwadar and sits beside the proposed $9 billion Reko Diq copper and gold project, about 50 kilometres from Saindak. These are not ordinary ventures. They are tests of whether Pakistan can convert mineral wealth into revenue and investor confidence without deepening the province’s sense of exclusion. For decades, Balochistan’s people have heard promises about development while many communities continue to live with poor schools, thin health services, water scarcity, unemployment and political alienation. Hostile groups exploit these grievances, but the grievances themselves cannot be dismissed as propaganda.
More deployment may be necessary in the short term, particularly when supply routes are threatened, and foreign workers face risk. However, a model in which mines become protected islands surrounded by resentful communities will remain fragile.
Pakistan also has a diplomatic problem to manage. Repeated attacks on Chinese citizens and projects have already strained confidence. If Saindak becomes a symbol of operational uncertainty, the message to future investors will be costly: Pakistan has minerals, but not yet the governance needed to mine them safely and fairly.
Those attacking economic infrastructure must be defeated. Nonetheless, if Pakistan wants Balochistan’s mineral wealth to become a national asset rather than a recurring flashpoint, it must treat local trust as seriously as it treats foreign investment. *