Tensions mount in AJK following overnight raids, arrests by police

Tensions mounted in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Thursday as police launched overnight raids at the residences of the members of a rights movement and took many of them into custody, triggering violent clashes between the demonstrators and police personnel in one of the AJK towns, witnesses and official sources said.  

         AJK’s home minister Waqar Noor told reporters on Thursday that some 70 arrests had been made across the state. However, those who had assured that they would not create law and order problems had been released, he said, without providing their exact figure. 

Late last month, the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee, which has been spearheading the rights movement for almost an year, had announced that a “long march” would be staged on state capital Muzaffarabad on May 11, in protest against the “non-fulfilment of the commitments made in writing by an official reconciliation committee of cabinet members on December 23, 2024, in pursuance of which a notification was also issued by the services and general administration department on February 4, 2024. 

The main bone of contention was the action committee’s demand that electricity should be provided to consumers in accordance with the generation cost of hydel power in AJK. On this, the ministerial committee had pledged that the cost would be worked out "because the government was committed to providing relief to its people." 

However, “instead of taking the announcement for the May 11 strike seriously, the government showed a nonchalant attitude which was followed by jitteriness and imprudence," said Hafeez Hamdani, action committee’s media secretary in Muzaffarabad.

“Rather they took steps, such as deployment of civil armed forces from Pakistan to provoke the territory’s civil society which had been exercising its democratic right of peaceful protests to secure the legitimate rights of people,” he added. 

In his recent press talks, Prime Minister Chaudhry Anwarul Haq had emphatically asserted that the civil armed forces, mainly the Frontier and Punjab constabularies, had not been summoned to be unleashed on protestors but to ensure protection of sensitive installations. 

While warning that those trying to disturb law and order would be dealt with an iron hand by the local police, he had repeatedly acknowledged peaceful protest as the right of every citizen.

 However, on Wednesday-Thursday night, police raided the residences of prominent leaders and activists of the rights movement as well as those of their relations in different parts of the state to apprehend them “for violation of law and order.”  

  In Muzaffarabad, police were unsuccessful in arresting Shaukat Nawaz Mir, the elected leader of the traders, despite raids at his residence and that of his sister, but at least eight others, including two student leaders, were taken into custody.

In Dadyal, a tehsil of Mirpur district along the banks of Mangla Dam, around 22 activists, mostly traders, were picked in overnight raids, only to invite clashes by their colleagues and other citizens with police, during which many people from both sides had sustained injuries. 

According to witnesses, when traders came to know about the arrests of their colleagues, they staged a demonstration in Maqbool Butt Shaheed Chowk, chanting slogans against the government, administration and police.

Video footage showed that after a heated argument the demonstrators and police clashed with each other. While the demonstrators pelted the police with stones, the police responded with baton charge and fierce teargas shelling. 

Some teargas shells also landed in a state-run girls’ school, which deteriorated the condition of several girls who were rushed to the hospital for treatment. 

Witnesses said the town wore the looks of a battlefield throughout the day, adding that on some occasions, the demonstrators appeared to have overpowered the police. 

The home minister alleged that the demonstrators had also held an administration official hostage for four hours, apart from damaging an official vehicle.  

In Muzaffarabad, Shaukat Nawaz Mir issued a video message from a hideout, wherein he announced that owing to the “brutal treatment” of demonstrators in Dadyal, the protest call for May 11 had been shifted to May 10.

“… all businesses would remain shut and vehicles off the roads across Azad Jammu and Kashmir in general and in Muzaffarabad in particular from tonight,” he said.

“I call upon the people of [Azad] Kashmir to come out for their rights. If you fail...[], you will never be able to get your rights,” he said. 

Meanwhile, at a press conference three cabinet members who were part of the official reconciliation committee, claimed that their negotiations with the joint action committee were going on smoothly and they were unable to understand why the latter had announced the May 11 strike and protest. 

“The government does not want a situation of conflict and its doors are open for negotiations even today,” they said. 

Tariq Naqash 

Serious concerns expressed over deployment of civil armed forces in AJK

Hundreds of people took to the streets in the town of Rawalakot on Monday to express indignation at the deployment of Pakistan's civil armed forces in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) to “help local police deal with law and order situation.” 

Holding AJK’s national and black flags, participants took strong exception to the government for its designs to “unleash Frontier and Punjab constabularies on the people of the state, seeking their just rights through peaceful means." 

Witnesses said that in many parts of the town traders pulled down their shutters in areas from where the rally passed.   

On April 22, the AJK government had calandestinely requested the interior ministry in a letter to place six additional platoons of civil armed forces at its disposal for three months to “strengthen the capacity of the AJK police to ensure foolproof security of Chinese nationals and our strategic national infrastructure such as Neelum-Jhelum power house, Mangla power house, and Gulpur power house.”

“In addition, we are also now faced with calls for shutter-down and wheel-jam strikes from May 11 onwards given by the sub-nationalists and other disgruntled subversive elements who intend to create a law and order situation by forcibly closing of markets and disrupting public service delivery,” the letter had added. 

Though immediately AJK’s senior minister Waqar Noor and later Prime Minister Chaudhry Anwarul Haq himself had denied outright that the deployment of the civil armed forces had anything to do with the protest of the Joint Action Committee, the leaked letter of AJK chief secretary had torpedoed their assertions. 

The Joint Action Committee has long been calling for rationalisation of electricity tariff in accordance with production cost, subsidy on wheat flour and termination of extravagance of government functionaries among other demands, many of which was conceded by an official negotiation committee after several rounds of talks. It has given a call for a state-wide protest on May 11, following the government's "failure to implement even the mutually agreed upon decisions, let alone other demands." 

In a statement on Monday, Prime Minister Haq reiterated that the civil armed forces had not been deployed to quell the protests of the Joint Action Committee, but for the security of foreign engineers working on hydropower projects in the state.”

“Peaceful protest is a democratic and fundamental right of every citizen, but no one can be allowed to take the law into their hands under this guise,” he said.

Nevertheless, the deployment had triggered serious reservations from two former prime ministers – Raja Farooq Haider of the PML-N and Sardar Abdul Qayyum Niazi of PTI as well as the PML-N secretary general Chaudhry Tariq Farooq and AJK Supreme Court Bar Association President Raja Sajjad Ahmed. 

“Deployment of civil armed forces in the peaceful region of Azad Kashmir will create a negative impression and provide India an opportunity to propagate against the liberated territory. Therefore, it must be reserved immediately,” Mr Niazi said during a conversation with PTI workers in Tatta Pani.

He urged the government to find a solution to the problem through negotiations with the Joint Action Committee rather than using the force to the detriment of the interests of the state.

Mr Haider stressed upon the government to avoid using Frontier or Punjab constabularies in the state in general and in Poonch division in particular under any circumstances.

“The government should resolve the issues through dialogue and no step should be taken that India may exploit for propaganda against Pakistan and the Kashmiris,” he said. 

However, a detailed response was given by the Supreme Court Bar Association president, who castigated prime minister Haq for “breaching the provisions of the Constitution and Rules of Business enunciating the process for important decisions.” 

 “The government means the prime minister and the cabinet, and not just the prime minister. But ironically since April last year the state is being ruled by a wiseacre who has amassed all powers, including that of the appointment of a driver and peon, in himself in sheer disregard of the Constitution and the Rules of Business, to the detriment of the system,” he said of Mr Haq. 

"Summoning the civil armed forces from Pakistan in the name of the security of Chinese workers is unlawful and unconstitutional because the matter has not been placed before and approved by the cabinet," he maintained.  

Referring to the impression being spread by some circles that “the Action Committee’s protest enjoyed the backing of Indian agents and anti-state forces,” the SCBA president maintained that if the government possessed any substantial evidence in this regard, it should initiate legal proceedings against such elements which the entire legal fraternity would fully support. 

“However, the irony in this state is that whoever raises voice for the rights of people and state [AJK] is dubbed as traitor. I want to make it clear that neither are we [lawyers] against the state nor are we traitors. But we do not need certificates of patriotism from anyone,” he said.

“It’s not acceptable to dub those who are gulping down the resources like vultures as loyal and those who raise voice for the legitimate rights of common man as traitors.”

Tariq Naqash