Anti-Pakistan protest rages in PoK, administration launches crackdown on students

Mirpur [PoK]: The illegally occupied Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) region is echoing with protests against Pakistan and its stooge administration. For the past four months, there have been continuous protests all across PoK against sky-high inflation, heavy electricity bills and taxes.

The resentment among the residents would intensify further if their concerns are not addressed at the moment. The local administration is apathetic towards the demands of the public and has launched a brutal crackdown on the locals rather than listening to their concerns.

The protests have taken the shape of a ‘civil disobedience movement’ against the PoK administration.

Amjad Ayub Mirza an activist from PoK in an interview with media said, “This movement has now culminated into civil disobedience. It kicked off after the people started protesting against the added charges on electricity bills and taxes, but now all different organizations have come together.”

People from all walks of life have joined the movement- be it women, children, activists and now the students too have come forward to lead the protest against the ‘injustice’ they say, has been done with Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Mirza also mentioned that “Now the students are the catalyst in any given movement and once the students start to participate on a mass scale in civil disobedience movement then the quality of the protest becomes different, it changes its quality, now it is a coordinated and a concrete movement”

The local administration, believed to be rattled by the ongoing protests across the PoK, has started targeting students for joining the movement. The administration allegedly failed a large number of first-year students at Mirpur University after they were found joining the local protests happening across the region.

The PoK activist told media, “On October 17, when students were protesting against the electricity bills and demanding justice, the results of the first-year students were released all over PoK on the same day and many of those students, the majority of the students were failed in that exam and that has now provoked a reaction in students all over Pakistan occupied Kashmir and in every city there are protests.”

The psychological warfare tactic, the administration employed to curb the student protests has backfired.

The anti-establishment sentiment in students and the locals has further emboldened and a more coordinated effort is being made to overthrow Pakistan’s stooge administration from PoK.

To quell the movement, the police in PoK have been given free rein to torture and arrest the students and employ all the inhuman means at their disposal.

“Students are taking out protests, they are being arrested, they are being harassed, hundreds of students have gone underground. They were going to attend the 28th October rally in Muzaffarabad which again has been called by the Jammu and Kashmir Awami Action Committee and there is a crackdown going on on the students and they are young students like 16-17-year-old students…now they are also up against the state of Pakistan, they want independence,” the activist said.

Under no circumstances, do the activists and general public seem to relent upon their movement against Pakistan and its proxy administration.

In the coming days, the protests against the illegal regime in PoK could only embolden as per the current mood and sentiment seen in the public.