Unrest erupts in POJK as Pak security forces deployed ahead of May 11 protests

Tensions are rising in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) as the Pakistani administration has been deploying troops from Punjab Province to suppress the upcoming protest in the region on May 11.

However, the United Kashmir People’s National Party (UKPNP) and the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) have issued serious warnings to the administration against the use of any brutal force against peaceful protestors.

Both parties have released warnings that they will organize international protests and demonstrations if the administration uses any force against the protestors who are raising their legitimate demands.

Currently, personnel from the Frontier Corps, Rangers, and Quick Response Force (QRF) of Punjab Province are on the streets of the area.

According to a joint statement issued by the UKPNP and JAAC, the demonstrators are protesting and unjustified taxation, high electricity bills, uncontrolled inflation, severe shortages of essentials like and flour.

Additionally, the people also demand ownership of local land and water resources and royalties to locals over the hydroelectric power produced in dams located in PoJK and Pakistan-Occupied Gilgit Baltistan.

Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri, who is the chairman of UKPNP and Sardar Nasir Aziz Khan the former spokesperson of the JAAC said that despite billions of dollars of remittances sent annually by the Kashmiri diaspora for the development of POJK and POGB the people of these areas suffer from severe underdevelopment.

Reportedly these funds are siphoned to Pakistani Banks causing the economic woes of the area.

Previously, in the same context, PoJK activist Amjad Ayub Mirza had stated quoting official requests raised by the administration that a demand for 600 police personnel and six platoons for the Civil Armed Force(CAF) has been placed to avoid any law and order situation in PoK and protect Chinese nationals, notably after the recent blasts relating to Chinese nationals in April.

Mirza, while reacting to the matter, said that the people of PoK have been suffering from a humanitarian crisis for more than four years, and the problems have aggravated every year and now are aggravating every month.

Further, he stated that “of course, the Pakistani state is scared of our people because they have been using all kinds of excuses to suppress our civil disobedience. Now the people are angry and they say that they are going to observe an indefinite sit-in in at legislative assembly Muzafarabad.”