Binoo Joshi
JK NEWS TODAY Commentary
Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir government has rejected a proposal of Islamabad to have its tighter grip on the area and its people.
Islamabad had sought to renew its control over PoJK by way of controlling the political activities and the limited freedom that the POJK government had over the affairs of the territory that is known as “ Azad Jammu and Kashmir” in Pakistan lexicon.
In an extraordinary cabinet meeting of PoJK on Wednesday , according to the reports appearing in mainstream Pakistani media on Friday said that the “ meeting unanimously agreed to disagree with the draft of the constitutional amendments in totality.” It was a quote drawn from the press release issued by the PoJK government after the cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider.
The draft proposal to further empower the ministry of Kashmir affairs of Pakistan was received by the PoJK government from Islamabad on June 22, and it was this draft that was summarily rejected by the cabinet of the so called “ Azad Jammu and Kashmir.’
Dawn reported on Friday this development and gave a detailed background of the whole episode that sought to overturn the rights and the administrative control that the PoJK government was granted in June 2018 during a joint session of the PoJK legislative Assembly and the “ AJK Council”
The Council was abolished as it had powers of the administering the region in the name of building a bridge between Islamabad and PoJK , but later it assumed the role of a “ parallel” government in the Pakistan’s occupied territory , angering the people living there .
The administrative control of “ AJK department of Inland Revenue , AG office and Directorate General of audit was transferred to the AJK government after the 13th amendment and the Council secretariat was left with no source of income, the newspaper quoting sources reported . It had “ greatly upset the beneficiaries of the previous system.”
This is a big jolt to Islamabad and its pretensions about its supposed concerns over the abolition of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir in August last year, while it is making all attempts to scuttle even the administrative control that the PoJK government had on its affairs.
