PoJK’s Action Committee threatens to revive stir if pledges are not fulfilled

Srinagar: The joint Awami (People’s) Action Committee (AAC) which spearheaded the recent protests in Pakistan-occupied-Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) is reported to have decided to resume the agitation if all the pledges made by the region’s government are not fulfilled by this weekend.

Pakistan’s defence minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif had in a recent interview with journalist Hamid Mir pointed his finger of suspicion to India and said that no doubt the people in the AAC were “more patriotic than many Pakistanis but it appears that some fifth columnists have intruded into their ranks.”

Three residents and a police officer were killed, and scores were injured across the held territory during widespread protests and clashes earlier this month. However, the ACC had on May 14 announced to call off its agitation following the government in Muzaffarabad accepting all its demands.

Showkat Nawaz Mir, the leader and spokesman of the committee, had told reporters in the PoJK capital, “Our all demands have been accepted and, therefore, we call our tehrik (stir) off. After the funeral prayer of the martyrs is held in Muzaffarabad this (May 14) afternoon, the people can resume their daily routine.”

Earlier on May 12, the Pakistani government had doled out a Rs  23 billion power and wheat subsidies to placate violent protests in PoJK. The local administration had also issued notifications to meet some other demands of the protesters.

The AAC has now announced it will hold protests on May 27. Its demands include setting up a national power grid, declaring the entire PoJK as a load-shedding free zone, immediate implementation of the AJK high court’s order on the use of hydroelectric projects, and initiating legislation to end all the special privileges enjoyed by those in power and other elite in the region.

It had earlier sought an end to the exploitation of the territory's natural resources, involvement of indigenous population in decision-making and resources management, reduced power tariffs and control over rising prices of the essential commodities particularly wheat flour, protection of environment and unconstitutional release of arrested leaders and all these are reported to have already been met or are being met by the government.

It has also demanded that a judicial commission be set up to probe the killing of three protesters in the firing by the paramilitary Rangers, which were called in to maintain law and order, in Muzaffarabad on May 13. The local officials had claimed that the Rangers retaliated when they came under attack while moving out of the town.

However, the mass-circulated Pakistani newspaper The Dawn had reported that Rangers were supposed to return to the Pakistani territory after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s announcement approving the release of Rs 23 billion for the region on account of power and wheat subsidies. But instead of moving out of the territory via Brarkot — the village bordering Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — they chose to exit the region from Kohala on Monday (May 13), the report said. “As the 19-vehicle convoy, including five trucks, reached Muzaffarabad in a ‘charged atmosphere’, it was pelted with rocks near Shorran da Nakka village, to which they responded with teargas and firing,” the newspaper had said. It had added that the protesters torched three vehicles of the Pakistan Rangers and when the latter entered the Muzaffarabad city through the Western Bypass, they were “welcomed with rocks again, prompting them to use teargas and bullets”.