PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has welcomed the Joint Awami Action Committee’s willingness to engage with a commission he proposed to address the unrest in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (Geo News).
In a post on X, Bilawal said he had received the committee’s response to his letter proposing the commission, along with the group’s accompanying proposal.
He said every loss of life was a national tragedy, and that his immediate priority was to help end the crisis, provide relief and restore normal life for the people of the territory as quickly as possible.
Bilawal welcomed the banned committee’s readiness to engage with the proposed commission — which he said has already been endorsed by the AJK Legislative Assembly — and said he would study the group’s proposal carefully.
The remarks came amid a surge in violence linked to sit-ins and protests in parts of Azad Kashmir, on the eve of the second phase of polling in Muzaffarabad division for the 53-member Legislative Assembly.
The overture is significant because of what the committee currently is in law. The AJK government proscribed the JAAC under the Anti-Terrorism Act on June 5, accusing it of involvement in terrorism. A banned organisation cannot contest, campaign or negotiate openly, and around thirty people have died in the unrest since. A commission that the group has signalled willingness to engage with is the first channel offered to it since the ban.
Whether the federal government or the AJK administration will accept the proposal is unclear, and no timeline or terms of reference have been published.
