Pir Panjal Markhor sighted in AJK game reserve along LoC

Wildlife officials in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) have reported a rare sighting of a markhor in a game reserve along the Line of Control (LoC), reinforcing long-held beliefs that the endangered wild goat still roams the area.

A 37-second video recorded by game watcher Waqar Ayub Chughtai shows the markhor cautiously walking across a grassy slope in the Qazinag Game Reserve of Jhelum Valley district before disappearing into rugged terrain.

Speaking to this scribe by telephone Friday, Mr Chughtai said local elders had long recounted the presence of horned wild rams in the region, but the absence of recording equipment in earlier decades meant such accounts could not be verified visually.

“On January 13, I, along with two colleagues, camped in the reserve to trace hoof marks of an animal we initially thought might be a wild goat or another ungulate,” he said. “We followed the tracks for two days, but they repeatedly led into steep and inaccessible areas.”

He said the breakthrough came on Thursday, when the team spotted the markhor with the naked eye around 2pm between compartments eight and ten of the reserve. According to Mr Chughtai, the animal had been moving alongside a flock of domestic goats but altered its route after sensing potential human presence. The footage was later shared with senior wildlife officials in Muzaffarabad once the team reached an area with mobile coverage.

Shaista Ali, the Muzaffarabad based wildlife monitoring officer, confirmed that the sighted animal was a Pir Panjal markhor, a species that once thrived in the range but suffered population declines due to unhindered hunting. “Improved conservation and watch-and-ward measures have helped its numbers recover, and it is now occasionally sighted on our side of the Pir Panjal Range,” she said.

Ms Ali noted that late October to January is the primary breeding season, when normally solitary adult males join female herds. “Being a wild goat species, markhors can hybridize with domestic goats, producing fertile offspring,” she added.

The recent sighting follows a similar event in late October last year, when a young markhor was spotted by a shepherd in the Phaala Game Reserve of AJK’s Haveli district, also along the LoC. Officials identified the animal as a rare Pir Panjal markhor, around eight to nine months old. Despite extensive patrolling over the next two days, the calf’s mother could not be traced, likely due to seasonal migration patterns. The young markhor was moved to Patikka Wildlife Park in Muzaffarabad for care and rehabilitation but died in December, raising concerns among wildlife observers about whether the facility could meet the needs of a wild mountain species.

Tariq Naqash

AJK Assembly urged to take up property seizures in occupied Kashmir

The Jammu and Kashmir Council for Human Rights (JKCHR) has asked the Speaker of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly to convene a special session to deliberate on the attachment of movable and immovable properties of dissenting voices in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, describing the practice as a serious legal and human rights concern in the post–August 5, 2019 period.

In a letter addressed to Speaker Chaudhry Latif Akbar, the rights body said the attachment of properties belonging to dissenting Kashmiris reflected an evolving policy with far-reaching political, legal and humanitarian implications, rather than an isolated administrative measure.

Referring to the AJK government’s constitutional position, JKCHR said it was not a sub-national administration, as it derived its legitimacy from the framework of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) and relevant UN Security Council resolutions. These, it said, imposed a continuing responsibility to safeguard the rights, political identity and material interests of the people of the former princely state pending the exercise of their right to self-determination.

The letter, signed by JKCHR President Dr Syed Nazir Gilani, noted that while the AJK government was rightly expected to address internal governance issues — including those raised by, and acknowledged in principle with, the rights movement led by the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JKJAAC) — such engagement must not eclipse or displace its core international obligations under the UNCIP framework. Internal reform, it said, could not become a substitute for protecting Kashmiri rights against external coercion and dispossession.

According to the letter, the post–August 5, 2019 policy of property attachment by the Indian government constituted a coercive practice aimed at undermining indigenous ownership, silencing political dissent and eroding the material basis of Kashmiri identity. Its consequences, it said, extended beyond occupied Kashmir to affect Pakistan-based Kashmiri refugees represented through the 12 constituencies, as well as members of the Kashmiri diaspora whose property and inheritance rights remained linked to the state.

The public marking of attached properties, erection of noticeboards and physical identification of homes and lands functioned as instruments of social and psychological intimidation, the letter said, warning against attempts to trivialise such actions as a “new normal” by citing isolated past incidents.

Property attachment, it added, directly assaulted the rights to livelihood, residence, family life and political opinion, rendering citizenship conditional in a manner incompatible with democratic norms and fundamental principles of international human rights law.

JKCHR urged the Speaker to convene a special session of the Legislative Assembly to deliberate on the legality and implications of property attachments, their impact on refugees and diaspora Kashmiris, and AJK’s constitutional and international obligations under the UNCIP resolutions. 

The Assembly, it said, should also be encouraged to consider reviving a formal plebiscite framework, including the appointment of a Plebiscite Adviser, as envisaged under the Karachi Agreement (1949), the AJK Act, 1970, the Interim Constitution, 1974, and as directed by a full bench of the AJK High Court in December 1992. It further called on the House to request the government of Pakistan to share data relating to electoral rolls and the polling sub-committee established in 1949 in connection with the proposed plebiscite.

JKCHR offered to brief the proposed special session and place the relevant legal, constitutional and international record before its members for informed deliberation. It also suggested inviting World Forum for Peace and Justice Chairman Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai and All Parties Hurriyat Conference Convenor Ghulam Muhammad Safi to address the Assembly.

“The attachment, by its very nature, is coercive, punitive and deterrent. It must therefore be condemned, resisted, legally challenged and politically exposed, not rationalised or allowed to settle into permanence,” the letter said, expressing hope that the AJK Assembly would rise to this responsibility in defence of the rights and future of the Kashmiri people.

Tariq Naqash