MUZAFFARABAD, Aug 9: Kashmiri leaders on Saturday asked Islamabad to abandon the Mangla Dam upraising project and go for some alternative options to avoid unrest in AJK.

The demand came at a public meeting held in Dadyal under the aegis of the All Parties Conference.

Witnesses said there was a complete shutdown in the town.Rejecting the Mangla dam extension agreement between the AJK and the centre, People’s Party AJK chief Barrister Sultan Mahmood pointed out that all the three signatories to it — the AJK chief secretary, the Water and Power Development Authority chairman and the federal water and power secretary — were not state subjects.

He said the agreement was unacceptable to the Kashmiris.

He said there was no justification of uprooting people and submerging the graves of their forefathers when alternative options were available to enhance the dam’s storage capacity, such as de-silting, building of dykes or construction of smaller dams.“Both the AJK government and Wapda are out to plunder the Rs64 billion earmarked for the project,” he alleged.

The PPAJK chief warned that if the agreement was not cancelled and the plan not abandoned by Aug 30, the APC would go for some “serious action.”

He told the audience that Kashmiri expatriates in Birmingham, the United Kingdom, were also holding a demonstration in front of Pakistan’s consulate against the project.

Jammu Kashmir Liberation League President Abdul Majid Malick criticized Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat.

Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front chief Amanullah Khan announced that his party would internationalize the issue.

Some leaders said that since Kashmir was a disputed territory, Pakistan could not construct or upraise a dam there.