MUZAFFARABAD: A partial shutter down was observed and a rally was staged in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) capital on Monday to condemn Sunday’s police action against a ‘peaceful movement’ by a civil society alliance averse to diversion of Neelum and Jhelum rivers for power projects.

In an early morning swoop on Sunday, police had uprooted a sit-in camp of Save River Save Muzaffarabad (SRSM) Committee at a bustling roundabout and arrested 23 activists, including three lawyers.

The detainees were initially lodged in city police station but were shifted to other police stations in the evening to avoid big number of visitors. Late in the night, the three lawyers - Amjad Ali Khan, Haroon Riaz Mughal and Kamran Beg - were released.

Camp set up by activists opposing diversion of Neelum, Jhelum rivers uprooted

On Monday, almost all shops in Madina Market, Main Bazaar, Lower Plate, Bank Road and Garhi Pan remained shut from morning till afternoon while elsewhere in the town the shutter down was partial.

SRSM committee members and supporters assembled at Upper Adda from where they took out a rally which paraded through Madina Market and concluded on Bank Road.

“Neelum Jhelum behne dau, Humko zinda rehne dau(Let Neelum and Jhelum [rivers] flow; Let us live),” shouted the participants of the rally.

Faisal Jamil Kashmiri, a key activist of SRSM Committee, said they would not budge an inch from their demands which include effective mitigation measures to combat the environmental impact of 969-megawatt Neelum Jhelum Hydropower Project (NJHP) as well as shelving of the proposed Kohala Hydropower Project (KHP) which envisages diversion of Jhelum River, also through a tunnel system like that of NJHP.

It may be recalled that the SRSM Committee had set up their sit-in camp at Azadi Chowk on March 26 after a gap in a series of activities aimed at pressuring the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) and other concerned authorities to fulfill their commitments with regard to NJHP.

On April 15, AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider had also visited their camp with a request to call off the sit-in, but to no avail.

According to sources, the prime minister was reportedly under tremendous pressure to settle this issue administratively.

However, on Sunday, his spokesperson Raja Wasim had told a section of media that the prime minister had nothing to do with the arrests and that Sunday’s “administrative action” was taken on the orders of Chief Secretary Mathar Niaz Rana.

Speaking at the rally, advocate Amjad Ali Khan said the prime minister should relinquish his office and hand it over to the chief secretary.

“If you (Mr Haider) have to continue as prime minister, then you will have to show integrity and courage,” he said.

According to reports, small rallies and demonstrations were also held in some other parts of AJK to express solidarity with Muzaffarabad-based activists.

Mr Kashmiri said the UK-based Kashmiri expatriates, particularly those hailing from Muzaffarabad, were all set to hold a protest in this regard in front of the Pakistan High Commission on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, in a related development leader of the opposition Chaudhry Mohammad Yasin had tabled a calling attention notice in the assembly secretariat for tomorrow’s session to condemn police action against the SRSM activists.

Mr Yasin said the government was itself bent upon “converting the peaceful movement into a violent activity”.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2019