The situation in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir remains tense as violence continues to overshadow the electoral process. According to updated figures from the Human Rights Council of PoK, eighty fatalities have been documented.

These include thirty-three civilian deaths prior to 27 July, forty-three deaths from 27 July onwards across Rawalakot, Mirpur, and Muzaffarabad, and four police personnel belonging to PoK.

Italian journalist Francesca Marino, writing in Parrhesia News, has argued that Pakistan’s foundational narrative on Kashmir is collapsing. She explained that Islamabad has long used the Kashmir issue as a moral stage, constantly pointing toward New Delhi to divert attention from its own repression in Muzaffarabad, Mirpur, and Rawalakot. Marino noted that the people of these regions have now stepped forward themselves, rejecting their roles as passive backdrops.

She emphasised that for seventy years Pakistan presented Kashmir as a morality play with India cast as the villain. This narrative provided Pakistan with an identity, the army with a permanent enemy, the intelligence services with a steady supply of jihadists, and successive governments with a diversion from bankruptcy and repression.

Kashmir became diplomatic currency, military doctrine, and national theology. It justified wars, proxy wars, terrorism, nuclear blackmail, and the disproportionate power of the military establishment.

Marino wrote that turning the gaze toward PoK causes this narrative to collapse. The region is neither free from Islamabad nor Rawalpindi, nor from political engineering, economic exploitation, or the security establishment.

While PoK has symbols of autonomy such as a president, prime minister, assembly, and flag, sovereignty ends where Pakistani interests begin. Even these symbols are now difficult to maintain, as recent elections took place amid weeks of protests, roadblocks, mass arrests, communications restrictions, allegations of manipulation, and repeated outbreaks of lethal violence.

She highlighted that the Joint Awami Action Committee has emerged as the principal vehicle for popular anger, raising issues such as electricity prices, flour shortages, elite privileges, and the absence of accountable government. Islamabad’s response was familiar: outlaw the movement, arrest its leaders, seal its offices, and redefine dissent as terrorism.

Reports suggest that more than one hundred people associated with the organisation were detained during the June crackdown. Documentation of subsequent violence has been difficult because authorities have restricted access.

Citing Reuters, Marino noted that more than twenty deaths occurred during the June protests and another nine in clashes on 14 July, shortly before the elections. Roads were closed, internet and mobile services disrupted, and media access restricted.

As voting began on 27 July, further violence and allegations of rigging overshadowed the process. Civil society groups and protesters have claimed a higher death toll, including reports of security forces firing on unarmed crowds, though these claims require independent verification.

Marino stressed that the blackout imposed around the region is not incidental but central to the story. She argued that elections cannot resolve the crisis. An electoral exercise conducted after arrests, killings, communications blackouts, and the banning of the principal protest movement cannot manufacture legitimacy.

She wrote that the ballot box does not become democratic merely because the state places it in a polling station. When political representation is imposed, candidates are managed by Pakistan’s national parties, and dissent is criminalised, elections become another instrument of control.

She further argued that the ongoing tensions in PoK may signify the end of innocence or plausible denial for wider Pakistani society. For decades, much of urban Pakistan has looked away from what was happening in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the former tribal areas. Enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, military operations, collective punishment, mutilated bodies, and the crushing of peaceful movements were absorbed into the national mythology by invoking India.

Meanwhile, the Joint Awami Action Committee has appealed to the United Nations, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, international media, and diplomatic missions to examine footage, verify facts independently, and press for an impartial investigation.

The committee has also urged the International Committee of the Red Cross to monitor the deteriorating humanitarian situation and ensure that injured individuals and civilians receive protection and assistance in line with its mandate.

ANI