SRINAGAR: In an interesting twist to India's growing unease over Islamabad’s reported plan to make the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan’s fifth province, a group of labourers were hired by a ‘contractor’ to hold a protest against the move here on Tuesday. Except, not only did none of them know what they had been hired to protest against, they didn’t even know where Gilgit or Baltistan were!
The labourers, brought to Mushtaq Press Enclave, Srinagar’s answer to Fleet Street London, in three vehicles were made to stand behind a man who was distributing leaflets criticising Islamabad’s controversial move on Gilgit-Baltistan on behalf of a hitherto unknown group, the United Jammu and Kashmir Forum. As the man started chanting slogans and the television cameras zoomed in, the labourers, startled, confused and angry asked their contractor what this was all about. The deal was Rs 400 each for 'a two hour job'. The 'thekedar' had omitted to tell them they had been hired to be part of a 'political show'!
Refusing to be part of any political protest and inches away from thrashing the 'thekedar', they walked off. But not before one of the men said: “We don’t even know where Gilgit-Baltistan is, or why this protest is being organised. And secondly, why should we hold a protest against Pakistan? We are poor labourers. We have nothing to do with politics”.
