MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Chaudhry Abdul Majeed returned to the seat of his government late on Sunday after almost a month, in what has been the longest absence of the chief executive from the state capital.

However, he will not be here for too long, as he is again schedule to fly to the United Kingdom on November 6 to ‘supervise’ arrangements for a public meeting of PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on November 15.

Recently, the AJK premier had announced from UK that he would organise a “biggest ever public meeting in the Britain’s history” for Mr Bilawal in Birmingham.

The announcement was made by him in the wake of an unpleasant happening with the young PPP chairman at London’s ‘Kashmir Million March’ on October 26. It is still unclear that who had invited Mr Bilawal at the event, which the organisers had repeatedly declared would remain apolitical and Kashmir centric.

It may be recalled that Mr Majeed had left Muzaffarabad on October 4 for Kashmir House Islamabad, cynically referred to as the de-facto capital of the AJK government.

From there, he drove to his hometown for a day to celebrate Eidul Azha and returned to Kashmir House to stay there until October 9, missing the 9th anniversary function of the devastating October 8, 2005 earthquake in Muzaffarabad, to the chagrin of government officials, opposition and civil society.

On October 9, Mr Majeed flew along with many of his cabinet colleagues to Karachi in connection with PPP’s October 18 public meeting where Mr Bilawal formally launched his political career in the country.

Mr Majeed and his cabinet members camped themselves in the provincial capital for 10 days, notwithstanding criticism back home, only to remain in the good books of their party leadership.

He returned from Karachi on October 19 and after staying in Kashmir House over the next five days, flew to France on October 23.

The purpose of his visit, according to an official notification, was to attend the book launch of ‘Benazir Papers’ by PPP Senator Jehangir Badr and “interact with Kashmiri Pakistani community and European parliamentarians in France, Belgium and UK”.

This time round, Mr Majeed missed the 67th anniversary of the foundation of AJK government in the state capital on October 24.

Interestingly, it was for the first time that not a single cabinet member was among the attendees of the police parade, which is the main event of the foundation day celebrations in Muzaffarabad.

From Paris, Mr Majeed came to London along with Mr Bilawal to attend ‘Million March’ organised by Barrister Sultan Mahmood, his arch-rival within the ruling party. However, he remained largely unnoticed at the march, due to his unfriendly ties with Mr Mahmood, an open secret in AJK.

The prime minister returned to Pakistan on Monday and from there to Muzaffarabad late in the evening, but only for two days. It was unclear whether the expenses of his upcoming tour would be met from state exchequer or from donations from the UK.

However, civil society is up in arms against the absence of the chief executive and most of his cabinet members from the capital in the name of one or the other political activity.

“He has been elected to serve the AJK people. There is no justification for him to spend his time and the taxpayer’ money on activities that are of no benefit to us,” said Abdul Hafeez Azad, a civil society activist from Neelum valley.

When asked, Shaukat Javed Mir, one of the spokespersons of Mr Majeed, justified his absence of “for being in connection with projection of Kashmir issue”.

“You see he has been busy in engagements that have highlighted Kashmir issue. The criticism is simply uncalled for,” he said.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2014