Echoes of Muzaffarabad unrest resonate in UK's Birmingham as Kashmiri community takes to streets

Birmingham’s streets this week became the stage for one of the first overseas echoes of violent protests in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Hundreds of members of the city’s Kashmiri community gathered outside Pakistan’s consulate, chanting slogans, waving banners and holding placards in solidarity with relatives caught up in the clashes in Muzaffarabad.

One demonstrator, Amina Qureshi, told Birmingham Live: “I came here because I can’t stay silent when my family back home are under fire.” Another, Bilal Khan, added: “We stand here not just for ourselves but for every mother in Muzaffarabad who’s lost a child — this is personal, not politics.”

According to Birmingham Live, “hundreds of people from the city’s Kashmir community protest about ongoing tensions …” Video clips circulating on social media showed a dense crowd gathered outside the consulate, though neither police nor consular officials have issued clarifying statements.

Community organisers say more demonstrations are planned in London, particularly outside Downing Street and Parliament, where diaspora activists traditionally gather during crises in Kashmir. With nearly one million people of Kashmiri origin settled in Britain — especially in the Midlands, Yorkshire and parts of London — unrest in PoK quickly reverberates through towns and neighbourhoods across the UK.

The Birmingham protest coincided with four days of violent clashes in Muzaffarabad (beginning October 2), the regional capital of PoK. Rival marches escalated into street fighting, shops and schools closed, public transport was suspended, and reports pointed to food and medicine shortages amid communications blackouts. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif appealed for calm, stating: “Peaceful protest is every citizen’s constitutional and democratic right… but public order must not be threatened.” He promised financial aid for victims’ families and announced an inquiry.

Behind the turmoil lies a heavy military footprint. Pakistan’s X Corps, headquartered in Rawalpindi, controls the Line of Control and administers PoK through the 12th, 19th and 23rd Infantry Divisions, while the Force Command Northern Areas operates in adjoining Gilgit-Baltistan. Analysts note that no verified estimates exist for the total troop strength inside PoK, with units rotating regularly along the Line of Control.

Officials in Delhi have long accused these formations of providing sanctuary, logistics and cover to extremists infiltrating Indian-administered Kashmir. The April 22 Pahalgam attack is widely cited as evidence. Militants opened fire on tourists in the Baisaran Valley, killing 26 civilians. The Resistance Front (TRF), a Lashkar-e-Taiba offshoot, claimed responsibility. In July, Home Minister Amit Shah told Parliament that three Pakistani nationals linked to the killings were eliminated in an encounter, with Pakistani voter IDs and locally made chocolates recovered from them. Delhi insists the attackers infiltrated from staging areas in PoK, underscoring its position that unrest there cannot be separated from cross-border militancy.

The issue has also reached the British parliament in London. Last Wednesday (October 1), Labour MP Imran Hussain — chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Kashmir — announced that he had coordinated a joint letter to the Foreign Office, backed by over 30 MPs and peers. The letter warned of a “total communications blackout” in PoK and highlighted the “deep anxiety” felt by British Kashmiri constituents unable to reach relatives.

UK ministers continue to maintain that Kashmir is a bilateral dispute between India and Pakistan. In July, Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer reiterated that Britain “does not take a position on the sovereignty of Kashmir” but remains concerned about human rights on both sides of the Line of Control.

The crackdown in PoK comes as other parts of South Asia face similar restrictions. In Afghanistan, the Taliban imposed a near-total internet and mobile blackout from September 30, citing the need to curb “immoral” content online. Amnesty International has warned such blackouts gravely imperil human rights, particularly women’s access to education and information.

Indian officials, meanwhile, portray the Muzaffarabad clashes as fresh evidence of Islamabad’s failure to govern. Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal has called such unrest the “natural consequence of Pakistan’s continued policy of systemic plundering of resources from these territories which remain under its forcible and illegal occupation.” External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has repeatedly asserted that “Pakistan-occupied Kashmir was, is and will always be part of India,” a sentiment echoed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

With Gaza already galvanising Britain’s Muslim and South Asian communities, officials in London worry Kashmir could become a new flashpoint. But for UK Kashmiris, the turmoil in Muzaffarabad is not abstract geopolitics but lived experience. As one Birmingham protester put it: “When our people suffer, we suffer too.”