The protests have taken the shape of a ‘civil disobedience movement’ against the PoK administration….reports Asian Lite News
The 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 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 said, “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. (ANI)
Russia Unhappy With Pakistan Over Structural Changes in Gas Pipeline
Moscow has expressed disappointment as Pakistan keeps on changing the structure of the Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline project and is not making any progress on the commercial deal amid US sanctions on Russian entities, reported The Express Tribune.
The Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline project was launched to build a Liquified Natural Gas (LPG) pipeline from Karachi to Lahore, and aimed to overcome the gas shortage in the Punjab province.
The Pakistani officials went to Russia on October 10 to discuss the long-term oil deal and the gas pipeline project was also on the agenda.
However, according to The Express Tribune, the Pakistani officials had to face an embarrassing situation when they took up the pipeline project before the Russians, as they got so frustrated that they even refused to talk about it.
Initially, Russia had nominated RT Global to complete the project whereas, Pakistan had nominated the state-owned Inter State Gas Systems (ISGS).
However, soon after Russia nominated RT Global, the US imposed sanctions on it, which led to leaving the project, and hence o development was made in the North-South Gas Pipeline project, reported The Express Tribune.
Since then, Pakistan and Russia have changed the structure of the pipeline almost six times but were unable to find any way to complete it.
in July 2021, Pakistan and Russia changed the structure of the project and decided that Pakistan’s state-owned gas companies would hold 74 per cent of the total funding required whereas the Russian firms would own 26 per cent shares.
Later, Pakistan and Russia signed an amended Intergovernmental agreement (IGA) to begin the construction work on the pipeline project in May 2021 during the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s (PTI) tenure.
The then Pakistani ambassador to Russia, Shafqat Ali Khan, signed the protocol to the IGA along with that country’s energy minister, Nikolai Shulginov.
Under a revised deal, it was decided that the Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline special purpose vehicle (SPV) would also be set up within 60 days of this signing to implement the project.
However, there has been no progress on a commercial deal since then, according to The Express Tribune.
However, after the PTI was removed from power, the PML-N led coalition government came into power and the Pakistani side again proposed to the Russians to revise the structure of the project, and stated that it should be completed on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis.
As Pakistan kept on changing the structure, the Russians got furious and refused to speak on the subject during the talks held in Moscow.
According to the sources, the pipeline project had been delayed because of the involvement of several stakeholders in the project. Adding to this they said that even some businessmen working for Russian companies in Pakistan had spoiled it, reported The Express Tribune.
Another one of the factors were that textile and fertiliser barons were also held responsible for the delay in the project’s completion. (ANI)
