Shops, businesses closed amid protests in PoJK

MUZAFFARABAD: Shops and businesses closed in Pakistan-occupied Muzaffarabad, after several days of violent protests that killed at least eight people in four days.

Demonstrators chanted slogans as they held small rallies in front of closed shops during a week of the unrest, which started on September 29.

Leader of Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee, Raja Shoaib said, “We are not against anyone. These are also the demands of oppressed people of Pakistan. A time will come when oppressed people of Pakistan, Pakistan’s poor people will become one voice like Kashmiri people and these corrupt people will be gone from these assemblies.”

A second round of negotiations between the Pakistan government’s negotiation team and the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) was held in Muzaffarabad on Friday, as efforts continue to ease the escalating unrest in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK), Dawn reported.

The talks come at a critical time, following the breakdown of earlier negotiations last week between JAAC, the PoJK government, and federal ministers. Disagreements over elite privileges and reserved seats for refugees led to a collapse in dialogue.

Since then, rival groups have staged protests across the region, with both sides trading blame for violent clashes that turned what began as a largely peaceful movement into a deadly conflict, as per Dawn.

A fresh round of talks began on Thursday between a high-level government delegation and a civil society alliance. That meeting was followed by Friday’s second round of talks in Muzaffarabad.

Sharing a post on X, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Tariq Fazal Chaudhry said that the government’s committee was holding a second round of talks with the JAAC representatives in Muzaffarabad.

“We fully support the rights of the people of Kashmir,” he said, maintaining that most of their demands, which were in the public interest, had already been accepted.

“Constitutional amendments are required to fulfil the remaining few demands, and talks are ongoing regarding that. We believe that violence is not the solution to any problem. We hope that the Action Committee will resolve all issues through peaceful dialogue,” the minister said. (ANI)