At least one person was killed and about two dozen others, including security personnel, were injured during a strike in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan’s Jammu and Kashmir region on Monday, September 29.

The strike call was made by the Jammu and Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JKJAAC), an umbrella organization of various opposition groups, after talks with the government over its charter of demands failed last week.

Protesters also claimed that the government has deliberately failed to implement the agreement it signed with the JKJAAC in December, even nine months after the agreement was made.

The capital and several other towns in the region, such as Mirpur, Poonch, Neelum and others, completely shut down after the call for the strike.

The clashes broke out after the cadres of a pro-government party, the Muslim Conference (MC), allegedly attacked the protesters at Neelum Bridge, a prominent center of Muzaffarabad city, with live bullets.

The Muslim Conference had organized a counter mobilization. Police and paramilitary forces accompanying its rally also fired teargas shells at the JKJAAC protesters.

Mobile and internet services were suspended in the region by the government since Sunday afternoon. Media reports indicate the government has decided the suspension of those services will continue until Wednesday.

The JKJAAC has submitted a 38-point Charter of Demands, which includes both old and new demands such as:

The removal of perks for the ruling eliteSubsidized wheat for the people in the regionAn adequate local share in state revenues from local resourcesSubsidized electricityThe abolition of 12 seats reserved in the provincial legislature for Kashmiris living in other parts of the countryAnd several other demands

A similar protest last year in May against the rise in the price of wheat and the abolition of elite privileges turned violent after security forces opened fire at the protesters and killed at least three people.

Jammu and Kashmir is divided into two parts, one is controlled by India and the other by Pakistan, since the 1948 war. The Pakistani-controlled Kashmir is called Azad (“free”) and declared a semi-autonomous region with its own president, prime minister, and a supreme court.

Locals have long complained about the exploitative treatment of the region by Pakistan’s federal government and misgovernance by the local elite and demanded a better governance mechanism with deeper integration.

Protests will continue

In a protest meeting called later in the evening on Monday, the JKJAAC leadership denounced the violence. It blamed the government for deliberately creating a situation for violence by allowing Muslim Conference to proceed with the rally when the strike and protests were already ongoing.

Shaukat Nawaz Mir, one of JKJAAC’s leaders, claimed the government wants to recreate a May 2024-like situation to curb the popular protests, and demanded immediate action against those responsible for the violence, Dawn reported

Mir claimed that the protesters do not harbor any hostility towards state institutions and are only protesting for their rightful demands which have been denied to them. He warned against any more attempts to provoke, claiming the protests will continue until all demands are met, Express Tribune reported.

The JKJAAC called for the extension of the strike and shutdown in the region on Tuesday, with reports of large-scale protests pouring in despite the internet and mobile services being suspended.

In several places, protesters removed the barricades placed by the security forces to block people from reaching Muzaffarabad.

Awami Workers Party (AWP) issued a statement condemning the “government’s resort to violence.”

It supported the ongoing strike and its demands, claiming they “speak of basic economic and political entitlements of the Kashmiri people.”

“The Pakistani state has long enforced a colonial policy on Kashmir’s people, denying them basic political representation and manipulating the so-called “Kashmir cause” to buttress the power of the national security apparatus,” said Bakshal Talho, AWP secretary general, in the statement issued by the party on Tuesday.

The post One killed, dozens injured in Pakistan protests for better governance appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via this RSS feed