Eight killed in protests in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir

At least eight people have been killed in four days of violent protests in Pakistani-occupied Kashmir, Pakistani officials said on Thursday, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif set up a committee of senior officials to resolve the ongoing clashes.

Only limited information has so far reached the outside world about the full extent of the protests, which broke out when thousands of people from nearby towns converged on regional capital Muzaffarabad on Monday.

Authorities have since cut off phone links and internet access to the region, where control is divided between Pakistan and India, which have disputed the territory since the two countries were formed in 1947.

Photos from Muzaffarabad showed riot police firing tear gas on a bridge on Wednesday.

Three policemen and five civilians have been killed so far, two security officials in Islamabad said. The officials said clashes between demonstrators and police had not abated since the protests began on Monday.

Businesses, schools and transport went on strike in response to the protests and have been closed in large parts of the region for the past four days, according to the officials and reports on Pakistani TV.

Sharif set up a committee of politicians to investigate the clashes and called on the protesters to enter talks, said a statement from his office.

“The government is always ready to resolve the problems of our Kashmiri brothers,” he said.

A member of the committee, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, said he hoped “that we will resolve all these issues through negotiations”.

Shaukat Nawaz Mir, who leads an alliance of Kashmir civil rights groups, had said ahead of the protests that the organisers were opposing perks and privileges enjoyed by the region’s politicians, bureaucrats and other top government functionaries.

“When we say that we need medicines at hospitals, they (the authorities) say that they do not have funds, but they have money for a luxurious lifestyle,” he told The Kashmir Link, a local YouTube news channel.

The other main grievance is seats in the local Kashmir legislature that have been reserved for representatives from other parts of Pakistan, which Kashmiri activists say have been used to install or topple regional governments.

Four persons were killed during similar clashes last year, before Sharif approved a grant of 24 billion rupees (USD 86 million) to help meet most of their demands, which included subsidies on flour and electricity prices.