Lately, Pakistan-occupied Jammu & Kashmir has been a breeding ground for the protest and uprisings against the Islamabad government. Decades of administrative negligence and selective backwardness suffered by the people of PoJK are being rigorously vented out in the recent years. The frustration of the people leading a life in the illegally occupied province are being gradually translated into violent and assertive forms.
One such latest protest in the series of eruptions is the ongoing youth-led protest, popularly dubbed as the Gen-Z movement. The students of the Pakistan-occupied Jammu & Kashmir are leading an unrest against the corruptive education system prevailing in the region. The protest was initially unleashed as a peaceful demonstration against the discrepancies in the education system such as unaffordable fees structure, corruptive evaluation practices etc. However, the demonstration gradually shaped into a larger and violent uprising against Islamabad questioning the step-mother treatment concealed towards the region which is devoid of basic amenities though it’s been more than six decades since Pakistan illegally annexed the PoJK from India.
The youth and students of the Pakistan-occupied Jammu & Kashmir have been holding demonstrations for almost a month now. It took a sudden violent shift when an unidentified gunman opened fire on the peacefully protesting students. The firing also severely injured one student. The viral video being circulated across the internet shows that the students are holding protests in the region of Muzaffarabad in PoJK and a gunman suddenly opened fire. This triggered panic and anxiety among the students who were apparently protesting to seek their genuine demands with respect to reforms in the educational sector.
Students and local population claim that the students were protesting questioning the illegal and illogical hike in the fees. However, the university and the local administration mercilessly opened fire targeting the students. The university authorities are responsible for giving a violent overture for the peaceful and legally fair demonstration of the students.
Irked by the actions of the PoJK administration hitherto frustrated students took violent forms of actions such as burning tyres and vandalizing the public property. The students also shouted violent slogans against the Pakistani state and the government in Islamabad. The protest is spiralling with every passing day and the University administration in Muzaffarabad has thus banned all the political activities in the premises in order to suppress the students’ agitation.
Students’ protest in the Universities of Pakistan-occupied Jammu & Kashmir is not a latest phenomenon. Students and even the faculty has repeatedly held protests against fees rise, non-payment of faculty remuneration, demanding provision of the infrastructure and other basic amenities etc. A similar protest was held in 2024, where both students, faculty and the administrative staff of the university together held a protest against the authorities and their corruptive or illegal actions.
In the latest protests students, are demanding the inclusion of a digital assessment system in order to reduce the malfunction and ensure transparency, credibility and accountability in the evaluation system of the university. Students in PoJK predominantly and repeatedly complain about illogical and irresponsible evaluation patterns where students are assigned low marks.
The latest student uprising is just another illustration of the soaring angst of the people of PoJK against Islamabad. The region illegally annexed by Pakistan from India is currently totally destabilized and disintegrated from Pakistan, politically, economically or in terms of developmental prospects. In the previous month, the region of Pakistan-occupied Jammu & Kashmir was embroiled in a massive and violent protest that went beyond the control of Islamabad.
The protest in the month of October was led and revolutionized by the Joint Awami Action Committee(JAAC) who presented a charter containing 30 demands to the government in Islamabad. This included providing tax reliefs, subsidies, fulfilling basic infrastructure facilities to PoJK and initiating other development projects in the region that leads to a better and secure life for the people of PoJK.
The region of Pakistan-occupied Jammu & Kashmir is being utterly neglected by Islamabad and is completely devoid of any developmental agenda. For example, the vast hydro-electricity generated from the dams of the PoJK are diverted and supplied to other elite provinces of the country when the very source of the electricity(PoJK) suffers from lack of power and darkness. The government mercilessly suppressed the protest through violent means leading to the death of more than 12 civilians.
However, the protest came to an end when Shebaz Sharif government in Islamabad signed an agreement with the protesting group and agreed to concede their demands. Despite these promises, Pakistan-occupied Jammu & Kashmir is a synonym to a boiling pot that has reached its saturation point and is about to explode at any time. People are suffocated and the region is fractured in every way possible. With lack of quality education to numbness in infrastructure development to reeling under the authoritative regimes who are deaf to the public aspirations and most importantly the innocent youth of the region who are radicalized and drifted into terror organizations, PoJK is a boiling pot about to explode.
PoJK thus anyday, is a costly affair to Islamabad that adds to the hitherto politically and economically disintegrated Pakistani state, with erupting Balochistan that is rising from the ashes of Pakistan atrocities. The latest conflict with Afghanistan across the border adds salt to the wound called Pakistan where there is no sign of healing as the autocratic government in Islamabad or Rawalpindi in specific, doesn’t listen to the voices of its people and runs only to fulfill hegemonic or illicit ambitions.
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