A law abiding and pro people humble activist named Umar Nazeer started a peaceful sit in protest in his home town Rawlakot against the illegal storage of flour by the state agency back on 9 May 2023. The unwise administration laughed at it as usual. They thought Umar Nazeer will get tired after a few days and go home, but they were wrong.
The administration had no idea of this humble man’s perseverance and anger of the people, who were starving due to the lack of the supply of the very basic human need such as flour. He was shortly joined by a number of local activists . They installed a tent staying days and nights in It beating the stormy weather. A similar protest started in Mirpur and Muzaffarabad. Representatives of all three divisions met in capital Muzaffarabad on 23 of September 2023 where they agreed to set up the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee now headed by a high spirited and level headed young man Shaukat Nawaz Mir from capital Muzaffarabad. The Joint Awami Action Committee soon became a mass movement which forced the government to lower the prices of flour and electricity. It cost them four protesters and a police officer gunned down by the state forces in May this year. The killers have still not been tried.
The Joint Awami Action Committee has held its first Foundation Day Celebration on 25 of September 2024. People from all over AJK gathered in Rawlakot which is the birth place of this movement. According to the announcement, twenty thousand chairs had been placed in Sabir Shaheed Stadium. All of the chairs were occupied and Countless people were sitting around in the ground.
However, the terrified state controlled media were nowhere near the stadium. Only a few independent journalists were seen on the specified Media seats. One can’t help saying that the AJK government appeared to be anti people, which didn’t allow the state controlled media to cover this unprecedented event. The leadership of the Joint Action Committee set up an example by sitting on the ground and invited the family of the martyrs to sit at the stage as special guests. The head of the Action Committee Shaukat Nawaz Mir gracefully announced that Umar Nazeer was the founder of this movement and he also invited a Special Speaker from Gilgit-Baltistan, Ahsan Ali Advocate, who is a well known remarkable rights activist. His speech was very moving and encouraging. He urged not only the people of AJK and GB, but Pakistanis as well to unite again oppression where it might be.
Almost all speakers from all over AJK were the people who made practical contributions to this rights movement. We reached the stadium at 3 in the afternoon and left at one AM, the next morning. People went to mosques twice at Maghreb and Isha and returned to their chairs soon after. Nobody left the program until announced ended ten hours later. This region is divided into many tribes and bradris, but I think is soon going to be reduced into two bradris: Oppressors and Oppressed. It’s about the time Government paid attention to Action Committee’s Charte of Demands. The ruling classes have failed to match ordinary people’s gathering despite public spending and state machinery. The way people have supported the rights movement in AJK shows that they don’t care who the leader is. All what they want is that their leader should caring and honest!
