AJK and GB to bridge gaps after seven decades

Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas and Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister Khalid Khurshid have accused the Shehbaz Sharif led federal government of pushing their territories to the wall by slashing their rightful share in fiscal grants.

Both leaders also resolved to establish institutional linkages between their respective areas to bridge the gaps prevailing for more than the past seven decades. 

They were talking to media persons after a dinner hosted by Mr Ilyas in the honour of Mr Khurshid at PM House here on Wednesday night. The talk concluded shortly before midnight. 

“The prime minister of Pakistan is the prime minister of the whole country regardless of which parties govern which province or state. But, sadly, this time round the government in Islamabad has come with a different agenda and motto to push their opponents to the wall,” maintained Ilyas in his opening comments. 

“This is surprising, rather shocking,” he added.

Stating that nobody could remain in the government for life, he asked the ruling coalition in Islamabad to "give up discriminatory attitude and instead show political maturity and farsightedness.”

“If you give us money, which you will have to, it’s not coming from your personal kitty but from the coffers of the state.” 

He cited that many of his employees were unable to claim salaries or pledged allowances for want of funds. 

He said that the Rs 500 billion package announced by former Prime Minister Imran Khan for AJK had also been stopped by the incumbent government.

“People are speaking out against us… because they don’t know the reality. In fact, it’s we who the Almighty blessed to make mighty decisions [for the welfare of people].” 

“If you think by denying us our share you can make us bow down, you are mistaken.” 

 He said AJK’s share in the variable grant, according to a mutually agreed formula, was more than Rs 200 billion and “we say if you can’t give us this much money, give us just Rs 100 billion.” 

He asserted that Imran Khan had generously increased the share of both the AJK and GB governments, despite the fact they were ruled by the PML-N. 

Speaking on the occasion, Khurshid said over the last seven decades, GB and AJK lacked the kind of a relationship that should have existed between them “perhaps because of the negligence of the leadership on both sides.”

Terming Muzaffarabad as his first and not second home, he said he and Ilyas had agreed to strengthen ties between their respective areas through different measures, including construction of Shounthar tunnel. 

He said they had also decided that a Kashmir House would be built in Gilgit and a GB House would be built in Muzaffarabad. 

Khurshid said Pakistan’s economic condition had never been exemplary but every government of the past had taken good care of GB and AJK. 

“If the past rulers were unable to provide additional funds at least they did not slash the existing amount. But the incumbent regime is the first set-up that has cut our grants, thus completely pushing both regions to the wall.”

“We are therefore right in believing that it’s an imported government which has come to power with a specific agenda.”

The GB CM was of the view that connection between the people of AJK and GB was a must for freedom of occupied Kashmir, because only they could better explain and advocate the issue. 

“I believe instead of leaving the Kashmir issue at the mercy of the federal government or foreign ministry we should ourselves become its torchbearers… We should rise, talk about it and involve all those people who are willing to support us in this regard.

He said he wanted to call on the UN Secretary General to discuss climate change and the Kashmir issue. 

The area we come from is neither visited by development partners nor by INGOs while the World Bank says we are a disputed territory. We ought to talk to the UN Secretary General that the GB and AJK should be given preferential treatment in funding by the UN agencies.”

Khurshid invited his political rivals to support his efforts for inter-connectivity between and betterment of the people of GB and AJK.   

Responding questions, he alleged that the federal government was trying to topple his government “by hook or by crook.”

“They are working to weaken the judiciary in GB by trying to induct their favourites in violation of an adopted procedure… They are trying to reduce the term of assembly. Last but not the least, they have cut our budget.”

“I don’t have any hope of goodness from them. But I am sure Allah will humiliate them like He has done to them in the past.” 

GB Provincial Status 

Between the lines, Khurshid maintained that the grant of provincial status to GB and AJK, without causing harm to Kashmir cause and violating UN resolutions, could help both regions overcome their fiscal and other problems. 

However, when a reporter posed the same question distinctly, he acknowledged that it had been a moot point. 

“If we look at it in the context of the Kashmir issue, the resolution passed by the GB Assembly categorically stated that the region wants to be brought into constitutional ambit without weakening the Kashmir issue and Pakistan’s position on it in the UN.”

“But we are not hurrying up because we have a commitment to the Kashmir issue. It’s sort of a sacrifice and silent jihad.”

Khurshid was of the view that if AJK and GB got “constitutional guarantees without damaging Kashmir issue and UN resolutions” not only that no one would be able to cut their budgets, they would also have political representations at the highest political forums.

“If anyone amongst you becomes foreign minister tomorrow (after becoming a member of the Parliament), will you not fight your case on Kashmir in a different way?”

He said in his view it was time for practical steps with a different strategy, because the strategy being pursued over the past seven decades had nothing but [hollow] promises to the Kashmiris waiting for us. 

Tariq Naqash 

Despite being abroad, AJK president 'physically holds meetings back home'

Despite having left Pakistan on a three-weeks long private foreign tour early this month, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Barrister Sultan Mahmood is however appearing in a section of press almost daily holding different meetings in Muzaffarabad and Islamabad, thanks to his media team. 

Mahmood had flown out of Pakistan from Islamabad International Airport in the small hours of September 3. However, a notification about his tour was issued by the Services and General Administration Department (S&GAD) three days after his departure following a tittle-tale in official circles about his sudden “disappearance” without a proper proclamation.  

The S&GAD notification stated that the competent authority had accorded approval to the “private visit of President Sultan Mahmood to the USA from September 5 to September 26” with no financial liability on the AJK government.

In the absence of the president from the country, the legislative assembly speaker assumes his office, without requiring any separate notification to this effect.

However, ever since the president’s departure, his media team has been regularly feeding the local media, through the press information department (PID), reports about his one or the other engagement either in Muzaffarabad or in Islamabad. 

For example, on Sept 5, a press release by his office said that a joint meeting of the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan and the universities of AJK was organized at Kashmir House Islamabad on Monday with president Mahmoud in the chair.

On Sept 6, a handout said that President Mahmood had chaired a meeting of Mangla Dam Housing Authority in Islamabad on Tuesday.

On Sept 8, a press release by his office said that a delegation of the AJK Zakat Council had called on President Mahmood in Muzaffarabad on Thursday.

On Sept 9, his office informed in a handout that the “US Embassy’s political counsellor and political officer Robert Keane had called on President Mahmood in Islamabad on Friday.”   

As it was not enough, the latest of the series of press releases was issued on Sept 13, stating that “President Mahmood had presided over the Senate meeting of Kotli University in Islamabad on Tuesday.”

Surprised at these handouts, some civil society activists had taken to social media with interesting comments. 

“President's soul might be wandering in Kashmir,” tweeted Abdul Majid Azad, a young Kashmiri management graduate.

Naila Altaf Kayani, a Muzaffarabad based political and social activist, echoed his views with slightly different words.

“If the AJK President has left for a USA tour on Sept 5 (according to an official notification) then is it his "ghost" who is chairing and holding meetings in Islamabad and Muzaffarabad almost daily during his absence in the country? Will someone in the presidency clarify?” she tweeted.  

Some netizens had also drawn attention to the fact that AJK had functioned without a constitutional head from Sept 3 to Sept 6 following the “without notice” departure of the president. 

When questioned by this correspondent,
Mahmood’s Press Secretary Kamal Haider did not find anything unprofessional in this practice. 

“The president had held all these important meetings before his departure and we are releasing handouts about them one by one for the consumption of readers,” he said in his terse response.

Tariq Naqash

Another 'tug of war' in AJK ruling party, as speaker aspires to premiership

A covert campaign by a key leader of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) to replace Prime Minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas by himself seems to have fallen flat, at least for the time being, for want of the requisite support from within the parliamentary party, it emerged on Monday. 

Ilyas was elected as new Leader of the House in April this year, replacing Sardar Abdul Qayyum Niazi - the first pick of Imran Khan after his PTI party had clinched a clear victory in July last year's AJK polls.  

However, for quite some time the AJK capital has again been abuzz with speculations that another no-confidence motion is on the cards. The speculations had borrowed credence after Speaker Chaudhry Anwarul Haq’s strained relations with Ilyas and his alleged secret meetings with some opposition leaders for their support to his candidature for the coveted office or vice versa. 

Haq, who was initially a strong proponent of Ilyas’ nomination for the AJK premiership, has been at loggerheads with him for the past few months in protest against what he believes the latter’s “extraordinary leanings” towards President Barrister Sultan Mahmood.

He was particularly angry at preference to Mahmood in matters related to Mirpur division, mainly the postings and transfers of senior officials, sources in the PTI said. Haq and Mahmood both come from Mirpur division’s Bhimber and Mirpur districts, respectively. Apart from being the speaker, of late Haq has also assumed the office of AJK Public Accounts Committee Chairman.

Interestingly, Haq had already been at daggers drawn with Mahmood, something he has never tried to conceal. At one of his public meetings during the last year’s election campaign he had berated Mahmood, then PTI’s regional president, for “supporting his rival Chaudhry Tariq Farooq from the then ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).”

Haq won his first election in 2006 with the support of Mahmood and Raja Zulqarnain, a powerful landlord and political figure of Bhimber who rose to the office of AJK president the same year. Zulqarnain has been supporting Haq ever since. 

At least three important cabinet members, who spoke to this scribe on condition of anonymity, asserted that Haq “wanted his choice in transfers and postings of civil servants in Mirpur division implemented without an iota of dissent.” 

“As far as the affairs of the Speaker's Bhimber district are concerned, his choice has always been given preference by the prime minister but he wants that he should be given equal importance in postings of divisional officers alongside the president,” one of them said. 

Another minister recalled that during the recent sessions of Assembly, Haq did not camouflage his resentment towards the government following which PM Ilyas had constituted a four-member ministerial committee to address his "genuine concerns and grievances."

“Nevertheless, the tone and tenor of the speaker suggests that he has come to a point of no return,” he said, lamenting that the “tug of war” within the PTI was making a mockery of the party particularly when it had already changed its parliamentary leader [in AJK] in less than a year. 

Political observer Naila Altaf Kayani maintained that Ilyas was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea because he had to face pressures from both the president and speaker to prefer their respective choices in many matters.

“Notwithstanding Haq’s support to him, the prime minister cannot afford to offend President Mahmood in a wanton manner because two members of the president family - son Yasir Sultan and brother-in-law Chaudhry Arshad - are also part of the cabinet,” she said. 

Sources close to Ilyas confided to this scribe that on Friday night Ilyas had discussed in detail the prevailing situation with Aamer Mehmood Kiani, PTI’s additional secretary general, in the context of the rumours about no trust against him and both had “resolved to cut the conspirators down to size.”

 As Kiani was reported to have passed on the crux of discussion to Khan, the latter had “not only expressed his trust in Ilyas but had also assured him that any conspiracy to destabilize his government would not be tolerated,” these sources claimed.

In pictures, Ilyas was seen whispering in Khan's ears while sharing stage with him at PTI's power show in Jhelum on Saturday night. 

Sources close to Haq confirmed that the ministerial team had met Haq on Saturday with an offer to sit with the PM to sort out differences. However, he did not budge from his stance.  

However, what had intensified Haq’s anger was prime minister’s invitation to former president Zulqarnain to see him at his private residence in Islamabad on Sunday. Later in the afternoon, Ilyas was also visited by Mahmood at his residence and both leaders were seen tittering in a relaxed mood in the officially released pictures.  

According to sources, Haq had remarked in front of some people that Ilyas had crossed the red line by meddling in his constituency.

The ministers who spoke to this scribe emphatically said that hardly any PTI lawmaker could go against the decision of Khan in the prevailing situation “particularly when everyone has seen for himself how the people have treated the turncoats” in Pakistan. 

“At a time when the party is confronting vindictive measures of the imported regime on the one hand and reaching out to the masses for a real change in the country on the other, chairman Khan can hardly consider swapping the parliamentary leader [in AJK],” asserted one of them. 

When contacted by this scribe on phone after several attempts for his version, Haq declined to take up any question on this issue. 

This scribe also made calls to PTI senior vice president Fawad Chaudhry, secretary general Asad Umar and additional secretary general Kiani to ascertain their viewpoint on the situation in their party’s AJK chapter, but while the cell phones of Chaudhry and Kiani were switched off, Umar did not attend call or respond to the text message.

Tariq Naqash

AJK Assembly resolves to protect territory’s constitutional rights

 Opposition and treasury benches in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Assembly on Friday vowed to resist any attempt aimed at divesting the liberated territory and its people of the rights they had gained through a landmark constitutional amendment some four years ago. 

The rare consensus was demonstrated by them during a debate on an adjournment motion by PML-N leader and former AJK premier Raja Farooq Haider, wherein he took strong exception to a recent letter from the Ministry of Kashmir affairs wherein nomination of three representatives from the AJK government was sought for a sub-committee constituted to “examine and finalise the proposed draft of 15^th amendment.”

Haider noted that the state of Jammu and Kashmir was a disputed territory whose future status was to be determined by its inhabitants through a UN sponsored plebiscite and it was surprising that the Foreign Office of Pakistan had been ignored in the process, making people feel that the “governments in India and Pakistan had acceded to division of Kashmir under some tacit agreement.”

“The letter has disregarded facts and attempts to undermine the honour of the Legislative Assembly. It has not only hurt the Kashmiris who have always braved India’s machinations but also runs the risk of creating misgivings between the Kashmiris and the government of Pakistan,” he maintained. 

Initiating debate on his motion after the Friday prayers break amid thin attendance on both sides of the divide, Haider recalled that this house had “restored the constitutional, legal, financial and administrative authority of the AJK government in accordance with the spirit of parliamentary democracy and the aspirations of Kashmiris” through the 13^th amendment in June 2018.

He expressed his gratitude to Nawaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi for facilitating the approval of 13^th amendment. 

Haider, who had brought sundry documents and booklets to quote during his speech, traced the history of AJK’s constitutional evolution right from 1947 amid “unrelenting mischief-making by the Ministry of Kashmir affairs” and said it was why the AJK leadership had agreed to formation of AJK Council during the era of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

“However, little did they know that Mr Bhutto will be removed from power after a few years and the Council will become another Chiragh Baig for us,” he said in a reference to a notorious despotic Afghan governor of Kashmir in Mughal rule. 

Declaring himself a nationalist “like all Kashmiris” he wondered why someone had coined the “absurd term of sub-nationalist.”

However, he asked the nationalists that while presenting their viewpoint, they should not lay any blame on the state of Pakistan - the only country on the back of the Kashmiris from day one. 

“Please exercise caution and do not equate Pakistan with India.”

Haider made it clear that as long as AJK remained in existence with the existing special status, the struggle for freedom of the India occupied territory would continue with vigour. 

Without naming anyone, the former premier said someone wanted to take undue benefit of the compulsions of the [PML-N led] central government to get the AJK constitution amended.

“But let me declare this will not happen,” he said, expressing the hope that ruling PTI would also resist the move.

Warning that such attempts were bound to create anti-Pakistan sentiments, the former AJK premier said he was tight-lipped on many issues lest it could create unrest.

Barring few, most of his views were endorsed not only by Sardar Hassan Ibrahim of Jammu Kashmir People’s Party and Bazil Ali Naqvi of Pakistan People’s Party from the opposition benches, but also minister for education Deevan Ali Chughtai, minister for local government Khawaja Farooq Ahmed and some other treasury members. 

“Even though no Pakistani government pursued the Kashmir issue the way we expected, yet we are Pakistanis from beginning to end… Why do you do things that create misgivings about you,” said Ibrahim, urging all parties to rise above political differences and unitedly reject any move against constitutional and financial rights.

Chughtai who spoke on behalf of Prime Minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas was of the view that neither Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif nor any other federal government dignitary was behind the move.

“It’s the corrupt officials of the AJK Council who want restoration of previous status.” 

Ahmed assured that the PTI government would not compromise on the constitutional and financial rights of the people. “Rather we will try to acquire more rights.” 

Later, the chair prorogued the session sine die with a note that debate would be resumed whenever the house held the next sitting.  

Tariq Naqash 

Kashmiri refugees seek raise in allowance

Representatives of post-1989 migrants from India occupied Kashmir have called upon the prime ministers and parliamentary leaders of Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) to "substantially increase their monthly subsistence allowance to help them make both ends meet."  

The demand, through different letters, was on Wednesday publicly endorsed by Syed Salahuddin, the head of an alliance of indigenous Kashmiris outfits struggling to overthrow Indian occupation. 

According to the official records, 7855 families, comprising 43037 persons, are registered with the AJK rehabilitation department as refugees from across the divide.  

Of them, 3101 families, comprising 17340 persons, are living in 11 camps in Muzaffarabad and Jhelum valley districts, 1159 families, comprising 6766 persons, in five camps in Bagh district and 814 families, comprising 4556 persons, in two camps in Kotli district.

Apart from them, 2781 families, comprising 14375 persons, are living out of camps in different towns.

The government provides a monthly subsistence allowance of Rs 2000 to each of them. Additionally, a monthly stipend ranging from Rs 100 to 300 is given to students from nursery to university students.

However, according to Uzair Ahmed Ghazali and other representatives of refugees, they were finding it next to impossible to make both ends meet in this paltry allowance. 

“Some three decades ago, we left our homes and hearths in occupied Kashmir due to the savagery of the Indian army and have been living ever since in makeshift camps in miserable conditions,” said Mr Ghazali.  

“The sense of deprivation among the refugees is multiplying with each passing day which should be a matter of grave concern for the Kashmiri and Pakistani leadership,” he added.

Mr Ghazali said they had urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Prime Minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas to increase the monthly subsistence allowance by Rs 1500 (taking it to Rs 3500 per person) and were expecting a favourable response from them.

He demanded of the AJK government to allot the two to three marla land of their abodes in different camps to the refugees to help them obtain ‘domicile certificates.’ 

The refugee leader regretted that the 6pc quota of refugees in AJK government jobs was not being fully implemented due to which hundreds of educated youths were unable to secure inductions.

Mr Ghazali said the post 1989 refugees wanted the AJK government to reserve two seats in the Legislative Assembly for them so that their representatives could "put their share in policy making on their rehabilitation as well as the Kashmir freedom movement."

Meanwhile, in a statement, United Jihad Council chief Syed Salahuddin called upon “all people at the helm” to take immediate steps to ameliorate the living conditions of post-1989 migrants. 

“If the salaries of dearness-stricken government officials can be raised considerably, why those terrorised by the Indian army have been ignored,” he said. 

He warned that inaction to address the “grave situation” on a priority basis was bound to leave a negative impact on the freedom movement.” 

Tariq Naqash 

JKLF terms "confession" by Yasin Malik as untrue Indian propaganda

Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) has strongly condemned the Indian act of impleading its incarcerated chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik in a concocted, fabricated and politically motivated case of terrorism filed by India’s notorious National Investigation Agency (NIA) in a New Delhi court.

“This act is immoral, illegal and reflection of political vendetta against the JKLF chief and has been done on the dictates of India’s [Narendra] Modi led Hindutva regime to silence a popular and the most powerful voice of people’s right for independence of the internationally disputed State of Jammu Kashmir,” said Malik’s special representative and JKLF chief spokesperson Rafiq Dar in a statement.

He also refuted reports in Indian media about his alleged confession of charges and termed it as “untrue and malicious and one-sided.”

Dar noted that ever since Malik’s arrest on February 22, 2019 and particularly after his transfer to New Delhi’s infamous Tihar Jail on May 10, 2019, he had decided not to contest these fabricated cases and had withdrawn his defence lawyer in protest after observing and anticipating the unfair and biased court proceedings and the ill intentions of the Indian government. 

The JKLF chief, he said, had always refuted and rubbished the charges of terrorism and terror funding levelled against him by infamous NIA and had been terming the court process arbitrary and an act of political victimization.

The court had turned down Malik’s repeated demands for a fair trial apart from asking it to look into the history of JKLF and his role in the promotion of religious harmony, nonviolence and peaceful settlement of Kashmir conflict, but to no avail, he added.

On May 10, during the course of hearing, Malik once again repeated the same argument and asked the judge that if his demand for freedom was a crime then he was ready to face the consequences.

 Thereby, terming his demand for freedom as a “confession of the charges” levelled in the concocted cases against him, the judge illegally and unfairly pleaded him guilty, Dar said.

He pointed out that for the last three years Malik had been languishing in solitary confinement in Tihar Jail and was out of contact even with his immediate family. 

“So, such stories coming out from the Indian side, like his confession of charges levelled in the concocted cases against him, are untrue, malicious, one sided and biased.”

The spokesman also condemned “all those propagandists who at the behest of Indian agencies were busy in maligning Malik on social media” and asked the Kashmiri people not to fall prey to false propaganda by India and its well-known stooges living in and outside the disputed Himalayan region.

“The Kashmiri nation living from across the ceasefire line have already rejected these stooges as they are the paid agents of Indian agencies working for India and against our freedom movement,” Dar said, without naming anyone. 

Meanwhile, separately, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas has also strongly condemned the unilateral trial by India’s special court against the prominent pro-freedom leader Yasin Malik, terming it immoral and unjustified.

He said Malik had spent his entire life in the resistance movement against India’s occupation forces and he was being subjected to political vengeance and religious hatred in India.

“Yasin Malik is a political prisoner, a liberation [movement] leader who has been peacefully championing the Kashmiris’ just cause of freedom the way Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru fought against the British rule,” he said.

Calling for a befitting response to counter Indian media’s negative propaganda the AJK premier asked the social media activists on this side of the Line of Control should refrain from “copy and paste” practice of the news run by the Indian media. 

“Copy-pasting Indian version of the news on social media is tantamount to becoming the part of the Indian propaganda campaign,” he said. 

Ilyas vowed that he would raise this issue with other political stakeholders including the Hurriyat Conference and other international organizations working for human rights.

Naming several prominent Kashmiri detainees, he said India’s apartheid regime wanted to silence all political leaders, civil society and human rights activists and media persons by keeping them in jails for longer durations.

He called upon the Kashmiri diaspora to mobilize the US Congress, the British and European parliaments and the UN Human Rights Council on this issue.

Tariq Naqash

JKLF regrets Pakistan's "failure to engage UN after India's Aug 5, 2019 move"

Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), an organisation advocating reunification and complete independence of the divided state of Jammu and Kashmir, on Saturday called upon Islamabad to have a “serious review” of its policy on the disputed Himalayan region in the wake of India’s unilateral August 5, 2019 move.

“Pakistan should formally rescind the Simla Accord of 1972 with India to free itself as well as the Kashmiris from the futility of bilateralism and take the issue of Kashmir to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC),” said the JKLF in an ‘open letter’ to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a copy of which was also emailed to Dawn. 

Pakistan’s failure to engage with the UN has enabled India to continue her aggression against the Kashmiris, maintained the organisation in the more than 2200 words letter, signed by its acting chairman Raja Muhammed Haq Nawaz Khan.

The JKLF asserted that the “lack of meaningful political and diplomatic measures on the part of Pakistan” to counter India’s illegal unilateral action of August 5, 2019 had subsequently intensified “serious apprehensions among the Kashmiris about Pakistan’s Kashmir policy, and policy on the status of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB).”

“For almost 75 years, the Kashmiris have come to expect Pakistan’s ardent support for their right to freely decide on the status of their internationally disputed homeland. There is a painful realization, especially since August 2019, that Pakistan's stated policy of support for the struggle and territorial integrity of Kashmir within the UN Charter and relevant UNSC resolutions has changed.”

 The JKLF maintained that India’s August 5, 2019 move was a fundamental departure from the historic context of the issue which required a “robust political and diplomatic response” from Pakistan. "But Islamabad’s response can hardly be considered appropriate, let alone robust." 

“Far from having to explain her aggression against Kashmir to the UNSC, the Indian government has been emboldened, despite having defied the UN resolutions 38, 91, and 122 with Kashmir’s annexation,” it added.

While urging Islamabad “not to proceed with its policy of absorbing either GB or AJK into its federation or extending AJK’s representation in the National Assembly,” it went on to demand the repeal and dissolution of the Karachi Agreement of April 28, 1949, whereby the administrative control of GB was handed over by the AJK government to the government of Pakistan.

Islamabad should instead support the formation of a democratically elected and fully empowered national revolutionary representative government of AJK and GB as one political entity, with an “Independent Joint Council” (IJC) representing both the regions, as its upper house, it suggested.

It also called upon Islamabad to enter into a “constructive dialogue” with the Kashmiri leadership on the existing policy as well as the one warranted by the situation in the wake of India’s actions on and after August 5, 2019. 

 Elaborating its ICJ formation proposal, the JKLF said that Islamabad should allow both AJK and GB to have their separate democratically elected assemblies and fully empowered governments and let them form the IJC comprising members appointed by both governments. 

The IJC would not only act as a constitutional bridge between the people of AJK and GB but would also ensure a formal relationship with the government and the state of Pakistan within the framework of the UNCIP resolutions as well as the mutual interests of both sides, it added.

The JKLF also urged Islamabad to enable the current governments in Muzaffarabad and Gilgit to formally open a dialogue between them with reference to its recommendations, with participation in the process from the parties that had no representation in either of the assemblies.

Tariq Naqash