The leaders of the Jammu Kashmir National Awami Party (JKNAP) and the Jammu Kashmir National Students Federation were unconditionally released from the Rawalkot jail in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) on March 9. He was arrested on March 2, when he successfully staged a sit-in- at the gate of the commissioner's office. They were demanding removal of all additional taxes levied on electricity bills and restoration of subsidy on wheat in POJKs.
Addressing a hurriedly convened party meeting after his release, JKNAP leader Liaquat Hayat said that there would be another dharna on March 12 and protests would be held in all major districts of POJK on the same day.
The mood of the public in Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan is being charged for more than three years. Lack of clean drinking water, deterioration in health facilities available in district headquarters hospitals and prolonged unscheduled load shedding have forced the people of POGB to hold protests on a daily basis in the cities of Gilgit, Skardu, Astor and Hunza.
Last month, Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that PoGB would be included as Pakistan's fifth provisional province on March 23. This declaration changed the nature of public discontent from social unrest to political agitation. The people of POGB have rejected Imran Khan's proposal outright.
On March 4, over 60 people were killed in a suicide bombing attack on a Shia mosque in Peshawar. A young geologist from the POGB was also among the dead. Since the PoGB is a predominantly Shia-dominated region, protests against a targeted attack on a Shia mosque shook the occupied region.
So now we have people from both POJK and POGB who are living under illegal occupation of Pakistan and who are fully engaged in civil unrest not only against economic, political and social injustice but also against religious extremism.
Pakistan was created on the basis of Muhammad Ali Jinnah's two nation theory, which is communal by definition. It is based on the two-nation principle that Pakistan has kept the people of POJK/GB under its iron. But now it is becoming difficult to sell this story.
Given the plundering of their natural resources by the Pakistani military establishment and large bureaucracy, the people of the above mentioned regions have gone from being suspicious to directly accusing Pakistan of denying them their economic and political rights and ignoring Pakistan's propaganda. That India is their real enemy.
At a press conference held in Rawalkot last week, pro-Pakistan jihadi leaders announced that a new terrorist organization was being set up. It is called Freedom Brigade 313. It was announced that by the end of April this year the brigade aims to form a militia of ten thousand youths. He announced that the brigade would join Pakistani forces in attacking India to liberate Kashmir.
Meanwhile, Pakistani military officers are said to be visiting colleges in PoJK's Poonch area. They are giving lectures and bringing students to military bases and introducing them to arms and ammunition.
This could be a preparation for the next spring and summer offensive against India launched by jihadist Pakistan. The fact that a militia is being allowed to recruit openly in Rawalkot and Bagh districts is not being challenged by the government, and that in the same areas, when Kashmiris do load shedding, tax on electricity, etc. And protest against cuts in subsidy on wheat, and being arrested and thrown behind bars, says it all.
Pakistan is not a friend of Kashmiri people. It was Pakistan that launched an unprovoked attack on the state on October 22, 1947, despite signing a stand-still agreement with the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir.
And it is Pakistan that is shedding Kashmir's blood by sending jihadi terrorists to the Valley which has played a key role in the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits and their forced exodus.
As the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council begins this winter in Geneva, I hope that all presentations by human rights activists from the POJK and POGB expose the hypocrisy and true nature of Pakistani aggression and its conspiracy to escalate violence. Will do In the Valley of Kashmir.