The recent unrest in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir | Explained

The Hindu decodes what has led to deadly clashes in PoK, the protesters’ demands, and the response of the Pakistani government.

The story so far: Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has been rocked by deadly violence in the past few days, leaving at least four dead and over 100 injured in clashes over the soaring prices of essential goods like wheat flour, fuel, and electricity.

The recent wave of unrest began on May 10 after the overnight arrest of several leaders of the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), which had planned a “long march” to Muzaffarabad on May 11. The crackdown sparked widespread outrage, prompting thousands to take to the streets, resulting in clashes with the police. One police officer was killed, and several others sustained injuries amid the clashes, which saw the police resorting to tear gas shelling.

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As tensions escalated due to the strike, which paralysed all walks of life in the region, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif approved the grant of a $86.25 million subsidy programme on May 13. While the decision reduced the prices of wheat and flour, prompting the JAAC to chart its next course of action, renewed violence followed on May 14 after a convoy of paramilitary Rangers called to maintain law and order came under attack by “charged protesters” as the troops were moving out of the region.

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Activists and politicians from PoK have long accused Islamabad of “serious discrimination,” protesting against heavy cuts in budgetary grants, imposition of “unjust” taxes on electricity bills, rise in inflation, shortage of wheat, load shedding and not considering locals for jobs.

At a Senate meeting last year, PoK’s ‘Prime Minister’ Chaudhry Anwarul Haq alleged that “PoK produced about 2,600 MW of hydropower and required only 350 MW, but the State government was neither given its due share in the Net Hydel Profit as permissible to provinces under Article 157 nor under the National Finance Commission (NFC) that entitled it to about 3.64% share in federal resources.”