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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

PoK’s revolt is the clearest sign of the unravelling of Pakistan’s political and military rule

PoK is not an isolated case. Almost every region in Pakistan is witnessing a rise in insurgency, from Balochistan to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh.

Pakistan is a living paradox. Over the past week, protests in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have seen the Asim Munir-led military put its tried-and-tested modes of authoritarianism on brutal display. And just like that, the Pakistani establishment’s carefully curated façade of Islamabad being a peacemaker in the region evaporated as bullets and bans brought a different reality to the fore.

A political dispute over legislative representation has erupted into one of the deadliest episodes of unrest in the region in decades, with at least 15 people dead and 70 injured, according to local reports. Over the past week, thousands of protesters took to the streets after authorities moved to suppress demonstrations against the abolition of reserved legislative seats for refugees who migrated to Pakistan from Kashmir in India.

Pakistan is a country living in two realities—one projected by its rulers, with a Field Marshal who leaves no chance to gloat about the country’s growing global stature; the other is the reality that plays out on the ground, leaving blood and bodies in its wake.

The violence began after the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), an umbrella coalition of civil society organisations, trade bodies and socio-religious groups formed in 2023, called for a march to Muzaffarabad on 9 June, the regional capital and largest city in the illegally occupied region. The protesters demanded that the seats be abolished before 27 July, when the region........

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