Registration of PPP, PML-N and PTI in Azad Kashmir nullified by High Court

The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) High Court on Thursday nullified the registration of the regional chapters of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) by the region’s Election Commission for being in contravention of the law and Constitution of the state. 

Subsequently, the ‘show cause’ notices served by these parties on their recently elected councillors for alleged violation of party discipline during elections to the reserved seats and heads of the Local Government (LG) institutions, were also set-aside by the larger bench, comprising Chief Justice Sadaqat Hussain Raja, Justice Mian Arif Hussain, Justice Sardar Muhammad Ejaz and Justice Khalid Rasheed Chaudhry.

The 20-page judgment, authored by the chief justice, was announced in the open court on four clubbed petitions filed between January and March 2023 by some councillors from Muzaffarabad and Rawalakot.

The bench heard arguments and counter arguments from the parties and their counsel after forming three points at issue which included whether the political parties which had served the impugned show cause notices on the petitioners were duly registered political parties according to the law and whether those were entitled for such an action; what was the status of a member elected on the ticket of a political party which had been registered against the law on the subject; and whether the [AJK] Election Commission had proceeded against the law by issuing the impugned notices to the petitioners?

The bench served notices on the presidents and secretaries general of eight parties - PML-N, PPP, PTI,  Muslim Conference, Jammu Kashmir People’s Party, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam AJK and Jamaat-Islami AJK - to submit their statements of objections apart from obtaining record of these parties from the Election Commission.

The bench pointed out that the prevailing AJK Election Act 2020 had laid down the procedure for registration of a political party and according to Article 4 (4) (7) of the AJK Constitution every State Subject had been granted the right to form or become a member of a party in accordance with the prevalent law. 

It further noted that section 128 of the AJK Election Act clearly stipulated the process for formation and registration of a political party under an application to the Election Commission, accompanied by a copy of its constitution and published manifesto, consolidated statement of accounts, a list of at least 1000 members with their signatures or thumb impression and CNIC copies as well the proof of deposit of registration fee.  

The bench perused the record of PML-N, PTI and PPP and noted that even though they had failed to fulfil the laid down criteria, including the mandatory intra-party elections among other conditions, they were granted “provisional” registration in the first place and regular registration afterwards.  

“There is no bar on establishment of the branches of the Pakistani parties in Azad Kashmir but only a State Subject is eligible to apply for its registration. No Pakistani political party can treat its branch as a ‘brand’ or ‘franchise’ because this runs counter to the basic democratic norms,” the bench held.  

It also took strong exception to the Election Commission for disregarding the basic requirements of registration of political parties as well as its responsibility to review from time to time whether a political party was registered in accordance with law or not.

“We wonder as to how the Election Commission registered these parties provisionally and allowed them to contest elections, notwithstanding several legal and constitutional shortcomings. Since the registration itself has been against the law and Constitution, show cause notices served by these parties and any other proceedings in pursuance of the same are also against the law and are therefore declared null and void.”

The bench maintained that since the court was not approached by any person affected by other parties, it did not deem appropriate to pass comments about them. 

“However, this should be kept in mind that even if any political party is not a party in these petitions, it can have a legal backing only by adhering to the principles laid down in the judgement and prevailing laws and rules. The Election Commission should initiate proceedings vis-à-vis their registration in the light of the instant judgment,” it declared.

In the closing paragraph, the bench made it clear that the instant judgment would not serve as a legal bar or impediment to the registration of any political party under law and Constitution.

Tariq Naqash

Off the Greek coast: Rat race drives people from Azad Kashmir to take the dangerous plunge

 In a rural area called Khuiratta, not far from Pakistan’s heavily militarised de facto border with India, people are reckoning with a tragedy and searching for answers. 

Khuiratta, named after a spring over which Muslims and Hindus fought during the time of the British Raj and currently part of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, is home to several villages perched on rolling green mountains peppered with waterfalls and springs, white-domed mosques and red, blue and purple flowers that dot the landscape every spring. 

Marble-tiled houses with large courtyards and imported cars are a common sight here. The fortunate owners of these homes and vehicles have purchased these luxuries from the money they made working in England, Italy and other European and Gulf countries. 

Real-estate prices in this agrarian region are comparable to those of Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, located some 150km away, indicating how property values have risen as a result of the investments made by expats. 

However, Khuiratta is in mourning. Dozens of its residents were onboard an overcrowded fishing trawler that sank off the coast of Greece, causing hundreds of migrants and refugees to drown on June 14. 

The boat capsized near the Greek coastal town of Pylos while on its way to Italy from Libya. It was believed to be carrying more than 700 passengers from Pakistan, Syria and Egypt. Only 104 survived. 

Pakistani authorities have so far confirmed the deaths of 81 citizens. But they fear there were more than 300 Pakistani nationals on the ill-fated vessel. Among the victims who have been identified, 28 were from Khuiratta. 

A history of migration

Located in the district of Kotli, Khuiratta is part of Pakistan-administered Kashmir’s southern Mirpur division, which has come to be known as 'Little England'. 

Since the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of people from the Mirpur division have migrated to the UK. The first generation consisted mostly of those who were displaced from their villages after the construction of Mangla dam. 

While official statistics are unavailable, estimates suggest that there are close to 1 million expatriates living in the UK who maintain properties and close ties with family members in Pakistan. 

“When the expats visit home, they zoom around in big jeeps, go on wild shopping sprees and spend lavishly. When their neighbours watch this sort of lifestyle, they also crave for foreign shores,” says Imran Maqsood, a lawyer from Khuiratta. 

“It’s a rat race. If 10 men from one village have gone and settled in Europe, then the 11th one wants to follow them." 

However, lack of education and absence of sufficient skills means that aspiring migrants have little chance of landing a job in Europe via legal channels — and with human traffickers charging up to Rs2.7 million (around $9,450) to smuggle one person to Italy, it costs the average migrant eight years’ worth of minimum annual wage in Pakistan to make the perilous journey. 

TRT WORLD

Even in villages, people have built multistorey houses from the money they had earned working in the UK, Europe and the Gulf countries.

“A notional perception of prosperity and better quality of life in Europe has pushed young people to take a plunge into the misadventure of this illegal odyssey,” says Naila Altaf Kayani, a political analyst based in Muzaffarabad, Pakistani Kashmir’s capital. 

“Unfortunately, while our ruling elite undertake foreign trips religiously, they have never taken serious steps to develop a human resource that is genuinely required and welcomed in Europe.” 

A story of many reasons

On almost every street corner in Kotli, there’s a story to be heard of a son or cousin or friend who has either perished or successfully crossed the Mediterranean Sea, which has become a mass graveyard for thousands of migrants and refugees. 

At a state-run hospital in Khuiratta, relatives are trickling in for DNA profiling as part of a process to identify the victims of the latest tragedy. Among them was Muhammad Sadiq, 75, whose 30-year-old son Sajid is among the missing and presumed dead. 

Sajid flew to Libya almost a year ago, but before he could take the hazardous boat journey to Italy, he was arrested for attempting to travel illegally and was subsequently jailed for several months. Then, in early June, he sent a WhatsApp message to his father saying he would finally board a boat heading to Italian shores. 

“Then there was no news from him and we saw his name on the list of those who have drowned,” says his father. 

Sajid, who had paid an agent more than Rs2 million (almost $7,000) to cross into Europe, was not driven to take drastic measures due to poverty — at least not by Pakistani standards. He owned a small mobile phone shop and drove a Toyota sedan. Yet he aspired for more. 

Conflicts, persecution and economic upheaval in countries like Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Myanmar, Ukraine and Venezuela have displaced tens of millions of people from their homes, forcing many of them to undertake dangerous journeys across borders, according to the UN and other human rights organisations. 

While many in Pakistan grapple with extreme poverty, even Pakistanis with a viable income like Sajid are facing a cost of living crisis, with inflation running at a record high and a government struggling to fix foreign exchange rates to repay its debt. 

On the Pakistani side of Kashmir, which has a population of 4.5 million, the biggest source of employment is the public sector. But government jobs often only go to those with strong political connections, leaving others struggling to find a decent income. 

And while Khuiratta might have pockets of land where real estate value is on par with Islamabad and where a few villagers have plenty of cash to spend, stories of financial loss and desperation are not uncommon. 

Hameed Iqbal, 46, is another victim of the June 14 boat tragedy in Greece. Iqbal was a resident of Seri Chattar village and a father of five. 

Iqbal used to have a job in Saudi Arabia that helped him earn enough to support his family. But in 2020, during the pandemic, he visited his ailing mother. Soon after, a travel ban was imposed and he lost his job. 

He opened a small restaurant, but after losses piled up, he shut it down. An ‘agent’ — as traffickers are locally referred to — offered Iqbal a way out: an illegal boat crossing into Italy at a cost of Rs2.3 million ($8,100).

Before it became difficult to cross over into Europe due to increasingly stringent border control, illegal migrants from Pakistan and Afghanistan would take the treacherous land route via Iran and Türkiye. 

TRT WORLD

Saeed Hameed thought it would be a quick journey for his father who was trying to reach Italy illegally. He's now waiting for DNA results to identify his body.

With crossings becoming more challenging in recent years, traffickers had to change tactics: They now fly migrants to Libya and then shove them onto rickety boats destined for Italy. 

“Going to Europe on a ‘Danki’ (a small boat) seemed easy. The agents assured papa that he will be in Libya in a month’s time,” says Iqbal’s 21-year-old son, Saeed Hameed. 

Iqbal said his goodbyes and left for Libya on April 28 to never return. 

Stuck in Libya 

Pakistan police have arrested more than a dozen suspects accused of running the trafficking network responsible for this latest incident. This includes one of the network’s ringleaders, Sajid Mahmood Warraich, who was apprehended at the Karachi airport on June 17, says Dr Khalid Mahmood Chauhan, a senior police officer from Mirpur. 

“We need to work on our laws. They are not good enough to stop the traffickers,” he tells TRT World. 

Over the years, human smugglers have built a sophisticated network stretching from rural villages in Pakistan to handlers active along the Libyan coast. They have devised informal ways to receive payments and to share cuts of the profits along the route. There are even people on their payroll who actively sell the idea of a ‘good Italian life’ to young men. 

“They look for men who can be easily moulded. Once the victim is convinced, they tell him there’s no longer space on the group and he’d have to find more people who join him if he wants to make it to Italy,” says Adeeb Zafar, a local councillor. 

This Ponzi scheme-like way of cultivating a group of ‘migrants’ has destroyed many families. 

“I know a boy who sold his land to meet their demand, and is now languishing in a Libyan jail,” says Zafar. 

Local officials fear a bigger humanitarian disaster is impending in the prisons of Libya, where migrants are at the mercy of human traffickers who withhold their passports and other travel documents, making it nearly impossible for them to get out without paying a ransom. 

Just a week before the migrant boat tragedy, Muhammad Habib, a 27-year-old man from Taniyot village in Khuiratta, died under mysterious circumstances in a Libyan prison in the port city of Tobruk.

TRT WORLD

Hundreds of illegal migrants languishing in Libyan jails and residents fear they can end up dead like Habib.

He was among hundreds of Pakistanis from Khuiratta who have been languishing in Libyan prisons for making attempts to cross the Mediterranean and enter Italy.

Once in Libya, the migrants are often asked to cough up thousands of dollars in extra payments if they want to get out of the prisons and continue their onward journeys to Italy. 

“I have spoken to some 20 people stuck in Libyan prisons. I have also gotten in touch with the families of many more. They are locked up in pathetic places where they don't get proper food, water or medical treatment,” says Rafique Nayyar, a local politician and member of Kashmir’s Legislative Assembly. 

Back home in the villages of Khuiratta, families are far from finding closure. 

“He was an intelligent and hardworking boy. I told him not to risk his life. This desire to go to Italy has ruined so many of our people,” Sajid’s father Sadiq tells TRT World, fighting back tears. 

TARIQ NAQASH

THIS STORY FIRST APPEARED AT TRT WORLD

Amid budget deficit, AJK PM inducts 'army of ministers'

            

Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Chaudhry Anwarul Haq on Sunday inducted 27 more members in his cabinet which comprised only two ministers since the installation of his government more than two months ago.

The formation of the huge cabinet, which would be followed by appointments of at least four advisers/special assistants with the status of minister, comes less than a week after his government passed a Rs 232 billion budget with a staggering Rs 42 billion deficit. 

The new ministers were administered oath by President Barrister Sultan Mahmood at the new PM House in the presence of PM Haq, Legislative Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Latif Akbar and a sizable number of political activists.

Haq had appointed Waqar Ahmed Noor of PML-N and Raja Faisal Rathore of PPP as ministers without portfolio hours after assuming the office on April 20 at the head of a coalition government, comprising his strong group of PTI renegades and previously opposition PPP and PML-N parties. 

However, since a constitutional provision, which was introduced by the PML-N government in June 2018 but came in effect after the installation of the new assembly in August 2021, restricted the size of the cabinet to 16 ministers, Haq had put its expansion on hold until doing away with that barrier.  

His efforts suffered a blow in the beginning when the seven-member PML-N parliamentary party was directed by its London based leader Nawaz Sharif not to vote for the constitutional amendment. However, an undeterred Haq, who enjoys the blessings of the powers that be, managed to convince the PM Shehbaz Sharif to withdraw the decision and eventually omitted the provision on June 3 by 40 votes as against the required 36 in the 53-member house. 

Yet, Haq dragged out the cabinet expansion for another three weeks until the approval of the budget by the Legislative Assembly in a single day (on June 21) by suspending the relevant rules. 

Those who were administered oath on Sunday included Sardar Muhammad Hussain, Faheem Akhtar Rabbani, Sardar Mir Akbar, Deewan Ali Chughtai, Chaudhry Muhammad Rasheed, Chaudhry Azhar Sadiq, Chaudhry Arshad Hussain, Chaudhry Yasir Sultan, Nisar Ansar Abdali, Chaudhry Akhlaq, Zafar Iqbal Malik, Abdul Majid Khan, Chaudhry Akbar Ibrahim, Akmal Sargala, Javed Butt and Asim Sharif from the PTI renegades, Mian Abdul Waheed, Syed Bazil Ali Naqvi, Sardar Javed Ayub, Javed Iqbal Budhanvi, Chaudhry Amir Yasin, Chaudhry Qasim Majeed, Sardar Ziaul Qamar and Aamir Abdul Ghaffar Lone from the PPP, and Sardar Amir Altaf, Ahmad Raza Qadri from Raja Muhammad Siddique from the PML-N. 

Immediately, their portfolios were not announced either.

Credible sources claimed that the PM would linger on the allotment for some weeks because the “needy outnumbered the remedy.”

“While most legislators in the PM’s group are aspiring for the previously held portfolios, coalition partners PPP and PML-N have also their own demands in this regard, due to which this tricky matter will take time,” the source asserted. 

Following the cabinet expansion, three lawmakers each from PPP, PML-N and PTI renegades, including those elected against reserved seats, were left without any flag-wielding position. 

Of them, the directly elected four - PML-N regional president Shah Ghulam Qadir and his predecessor and ex PM Raja Farooq Haider and PPP president Chaudhry Yasin and senior PPP leader and ex-president Sardar Yaqoob Khan - were unlikely to accept any position in the government. 

It may be recalled that PTI defector Mazhar Saeed MLA has already been holding the office of chairman PM’s Inspection and Implementation Commission. 

On Sunday, the prime minister increased the perks and privileges of his office on a par with a minister with retrospective effect from March 6, 2023. 

Of the remaining five – all women - four were likely to be appointed as advisers and special assistants. However, their notification was held in abeyance, for the time being, reportedly after one of them had declined to accept this position. 

Meanwhile, formation of the “heavy weight” cabinet was greeted with scathing criticism by civil society activists on social media, with a tinge of sarcasm.

“Our hospitals are without medicines, schools are without equipment and people are on roads over wheat flour crises, but the indifferent government is raising an army of ministers as if it has to wage a war with India for liberation of Kashmir,” wrote one netizen. 

It may be recalled that the size of the cabinet in the previous PML-N government was 26 in the 49-member house.  
Tariq Naqash