Pakistan’s Suppression of Civil Society in Gilgit Baltistan
West Kashmir – 09/05/10

At the stroke of midnight on 27th April in Gilgit, the home secretary
of Gilgit Baltistan - Bilal Lodhi, gave instructions to the security
agencies to expel twelve citizens (effectively state subjects of the
erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir) forthwith and prevent them from
gathering for a seminar on the 28th of April. Within a matter of
hours, they were rounded up from various parts of the city and given
notice that they couldn’t re-enter the region for three months. Eight
of them were from Pakistani-administered Kashmir and the other four
were from the very region they were being expelled from.
Their names are as follows:
The four from Gilgit Baltistan
Farooq Advocate – KNM
Col. (r) Wajahat Hassan – BTF
Col. (r) Nadir Hassan – BTF
Shafqat Inqalabi - BNF
The eight from Pakistani-administered Kashmir
1) Arif Shahid - JKNLF
2) Mehmud Baig - National Lawyers Forum
3) Farooq Niazi – a human rights advocate
4) Sabir kashmiri - JKLF(R)
5) Sardar Saghir – JKLF (A)
6) Raja Mazahar – JKLF (A)
7) Professor Mark Khaleeque – JK NAP
8) Shaukat Maqbool Butt – JKNLF (Prevented from initial travel to GB)
The above mentioned figures were to take part in a public meeting in
Garhi Bagh in Gilgit city to condemn the ‘Karachi Agreement’ of April
28 1949, under which administrative control of Gilgit Baltistan was
handed over to the government of Pakistan, without as much as
consultation of any citizen of the region there.
Note: This ‘Agreement’ in 1949 took place between Sardar Ibrahim Khan,
Chaudary Ghulam Abbass (both of the Muslim Conference of
Pakistani-administered Kashmir) and Pakistan’s minister without
portfolio Mushtaq Gurmani. The ostensible basis of the agreement was
that Pakistani-administered Kashmir did not have the capacity to run
or govern such a large territory to it’s north and thus ‘power of
governance’ would be handed over to Pakistan in the interim.
A large cloud of uncertainty and subsequent denial surrounds this
agreement. Nationalists contest that the agreement is buttressed by a
forged letter, supposedly signed by the Mirs of Hunza and Nagar
(abdicating power and territory to Pakistan) on the 4th of March 1949.
Sardar Ibrahim Khan, the then President of Pakistani-administered
Kashmir, is also reported to have denied signing the Karachi Agreement
before his death.
Returning to the arrests of the 27th of April, observers opine that
the administration foresaw an ‘uncomfortable’ level of public
participation in the intended gathering on the following day (28th),
thus considering it as a clear and present threat to their “illegal
occupation” of this geopolitically pivotal area, that borders four
nuclear equipped countries.
It appears that the local administration were given “judicial orders”
from Pakistan’s Interior Ministry.
GBDA (Gilgit Baltistan Democratic Alliance) - a political organisation
in the region – promptly handed a memorandum to the UNMOGIP (United
Nations Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan)
representative in Gilgit, where it addressed Ban Ki Moon, the UN
Secretary General. Salient points highlighted were that the public’s
expression of grievances in a peaceful manner had been thwarted by an
“oppressive authority”. GBDA gathered that Pakistan was using an “iron
fist” and “draconian laws” to “prevent freedom of assembly and
expression”, “laws that were usually associated with state terrorism”.
They went further to point out that “these laws were extended without
legal authority” and “in clear contravention of UNCIP (United Nations
Commission on India and Pakistan) resolutions”.
It is important to note that the Pakistani government had resorted to
similar measures (of evicting citizens of the State) before what
nationalists would describe as the “sham election process” on the 12th
of September last year.
Returning back to the events of the early hours of 27th April, the
police had arrested all the above named citizens and sent them packing
towards Pakistan. All bar Shaukat Maqbool Butt, who was prevented from
entering the region in the first instance and Shafqat Inqalabi. The
latter was arrested later in the day at 5pm.
He was initially taken to Gilgit City police station before being
transferred to the investigation cell of GIT (Gilgit Investigation
Team) and banned from meeting family and friends. He was subsequently
incarcerated as preparations to escort him to Pakistan were in
process. In the meantime, public pressure was exerted on the
authorities to release him and prevent him from being deported from
his own territory. The police succumbed to the pressure and allowed
him to proceed to Ghizar, Shafqat’s home district. He was nevertheless
banned from entering Gilgit city and from engaging in ‘politics at his
home station’.
In an interview to this writer, Shafqat Inqalabi made it clear that he
had no affiliation with GBDA, the political organisation that had
arranged this public gathering for the 28th of April. He was kept
under arrest for twenty-six hours – no FIR (First Initial Report) was
written by the police and neither was there a magistrate present.
Shafqat feels he was victimised for his writ petition in Pakistan’s
Supreme Court, challenging the ‘autonomy package’ announced last year.
Hence, put on the ‘eviction list’ by the authorities under instruction
from a Mr. Mujeeb, thought to be the Director of Intelligence Bureau
(IB) for Gilgit Baltistan. Additional instructions had been given by a
colonel of the ISI (Inter-Services Inteligence), he asserts.
On the 29th of April, Mr. Inqalabi addressed a press conference at his
home station Gahkuch in Ghizar district, making his views on recent
events in no uncertain terms. Gilgit Baltistan’s home secretary, the
ISI and IB were given particular mention. Subsequently, on the 4th of
May, the Gilgit police approached him in Ghizar and said that they
wanted to escort him to Gilgit, to present him before the chief court
of Gilgit Baltistan the following morning.
The next day on the 5th of May, Gilgit police picked up Shafqat from
his home at 6am and escorted him to Gilgit Cantt. police station in a
police van. IB, ISi and police officials were present here. Upon
interrogation by the ISI officer, Mr. Inqalabi’s patience could hold
out no longer and he felt compelled to slap him. In response, the
inspector of police chained Shafqat’s hands and feet and duly locked
him up in a police van.
The police took him in the van to Basari (the border between Gilgit
Baltistan and Pakistan). From there - accompanied by police - he was
put on a bus heading for Rawalpindi.
Shafqat Inqalabi feels his life is at risk, clandestine agencies of
Pakistan’s security apparatus have been harassing him for the past two
months with the aim of forcing him to withdraw his writ petition from
Pakistan’s Supreme Court.
Meanwhile - in a separate interview to this writer on the very day of
the arrests and evictions on the 27th of May – Col. (r) Nadir Hassan
was fuming at what he described as Pakistan’s refusal to allow the
people of Gilgit Baltistan to be “na theen ke naa theraa ke” (“we are
neither counted amongst 3 or 13”). He felt the people of Gilgit
Baltistan were being slowly eased away from the Kashmir dispute, an
important global radar that highlighted the question of the region’s
future. On the other hand, the region’s geo-strategic location and
it’s power leverage vis-à-vis China and India was too much a
temptation for Pakistan to keep in limbo, thus it’s “superficial”
package of autonomy. As a result, the people of Gilgit Baltistan were
deprived of both their self-determined identity as well as their right
to unfettered autonomy.
The idea of evicting citizens of a state from their own home and the
heavy-handed manner in which it was conducted, no less the son of a
local freedom icon namely the late Col. Hassan Khan (considering as
amongst the most prominent figures in liberating the territory from
Dogra Rule in October 1947) is perhaps an indication of how desperate
Pakistan is to hold onto this lucrative territory