‘Collapsed’: Roadblocks, internet blackout leave Pakistani Kashmir in limbo

Muzaffarabad, Pakistan-administered Kashmir — Zaheer Iqbal remembers exactly how much fuel it took to save his brother’s life. First, 2.5 litres to drive from his hilltop village of Keri Kot to the government hospital in Hajira, more than 10km (6 miles) away, a journey that took an hour.

Then another five litres, brought by a cousin who drove more than 60km (37 miles) from Kotli city in a two-hour trip, so there was enough petrol to continue to Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.

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It was the middle of the night in mid-June when Iqbal’s elder brother collapsed with chest pain in their village in Poonch Division, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

With no ambulance service reaching Keri Kot, where most people travel on motorcycle or on foot, Iqbal, his two sons and other relatives carried his brother on a makeshift bed until they reached the nearest road.

“We put him on a bed and took him on our shoulders and walked a long way to the road connecting to the city,” said Iqbal, 45, a construction labourer.

Eventually, they persuaded a friend to drive them, while neighbours siphoned petrol from their motorcycles to gather enough fuel for the journey to Hajira.

At the government hospital, the limited staff could do little more than stabilise the patient. Doctors told the family he needed to be transferred immediately to a larger hospital, preferably in Islamabad, about 140km (87 miles) away, a journey of nearly four hours.

Another car had to be found, another favour requested and another search for petrol began before Iqbal was finally able to take his brother to a government hospital in Islamabad, where he received treatment and is now recovering.

Iqbal’s ordeal unfolded amid protests, strikes, and mobile and internet shutdowns that have gripped Pakistan-administered Kashmir, formally known as Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), and particularly its Poonch Division, for the past six weeks.

The unrest began in June after authorities banned the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), a coalition demanding the abolition of 12 legislative assembly seats reserved for Kashmiri refugees, among other grievances.

Weeks of strikes, sit-ins and clashes followed, resulting in dozens of deaths, both of protesters and law enforcement personnel, ahead of the phased legislative assembly election, which is scheduled to begin on July 27.

But for many people in Poonch Division, which borders India, and neighbouring areas, the defining feature of the past month has been neither the election nor the protests.

Instead, it has been the disruption to everyday life caused by roadblocks and the prolonged internet shutdown.

A digital silence

Mobile data and broadband services across AJK have been suspended since June 5.

In Hajira, Iqbal said the shutdown has had less impact than it has in larger towns and cities because there is little business activity in his village.

“This is one thing which impacts less than cities,” he said. “But for those who rely on it, especially students and businesses, this has impacted people a lot more.”

His own livelihood depends less on internet access than on relatives working abroad or in Islamabad, who send money whenever they can.

“That is what has kept us going, since there has been little to no work since the protests started,” he said.

In neighbouring Sudhnoti district, trader Malik Niaz Ahmed, president of the local traders’ association, said the shutdown had hit students the hardest, alongside shortages of government-subsidised wheat caused by road closures disrupting supplies.

“The June allocation [of wheat] was never fulfilled,” he said, due to the road closures.

Traders have instead been forced to buy flour at market rates of about 6,000 Pakistani rupees ($21.60) per maund, a traditional measure in South Asia which amounts to about 37kg, compared with the subsidised rate of 2,200 rupees ($8) promised to residents.

Ahmed said his union council serves a combined rural and urban population of about 100,000 people.

About 8km (5 miles) north, in Poonch’s Pallandari area, Masood Khan, principal of the local postgraduate college, described similar hardships, compounded by a crisis affecting his students.

“The internet closure remains the single biggest obstacle to doing anything,” he said. “Even the regular mobile network keeps failing. Calls end abruptly, or the voice quality is so poor you can barely follow.”

Khan has taught for three decades and has led the college for the past six months. During his interview with Al Jazeera, the phone call dropped four times.

Since the protests began, he said, public transport has become prohibitively expensive, while groceries have become harder to obtain.

“Pulses, bread, eggs, vegetables, all of it is available, but in short supply,” he said. “We often have to queue or pay extra.”

Khan’s students were midway through their entrance examinations for medical colleges across Pakistan when authorities postponed the remaining three papers because of the disruption.

More than six weeks later, they are still waiting.

“No exam means no result, which means no admission,” he said. “For an entire generation of students here, this is a wasted academic year.”

Poonch Division remains the epicentre of the protests, which have continued for weeks despite heavy rain and difficult weather conditions.

Government officials say the number of protesters at various sit-in sites has declined but insist the crowds have yet to disperse. They say access to parts of the division remains restricted by JAAC activists.

Fading sympathy

About 150km (93 miles) north of Rawalakot, the largest city in Poonch Division, lies Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

There, the disruption caused by the protests and the internet shutdown has taken on different, and at times unexpected, forms.

Usman Gul, a 35-year-old lawyer, had planned his wedding reception for June 9, the same day JAAC announced its long march towards Muzaffarabad.

“It was such a bizarre feeling,” he told Al Jazeera, “that despite having two bank accounts, having a significant amount of money there, I was, for all practical purposes, poor.”

With banks and ATMs rendered inoperable because of the internet shutdown, and no way to transfer money electronically, Gul had to borrow cash from friends to pay vendors and cover household expenses related to the wedding.

Other vendors also informed him they could no longer guarantee their services because of the road closures and ongoing unrest.

Left with few options, Gul postponed the reception.

“On one hand, government encourages businesses, offices, traders to deploy cashless technologies,” he said. “But when it comes to reality on the ground, the only tool they have is to close down the internet, regardless of how badly it impacts the public.”

Malik Dawood, who owns a printing business in Muzaffarabad, said his business had “completely collapsed” since June 5, the date of the last message sent from his shop’s WhatsApp account.

His staff now drive two hours outside the city simply to find a mobile signal so they can contact clients and suppliers.

He estimates the shutdown has cost him between 15 million and 20 million Pakistani rupees ($54,000 to $72,000) during what is usually the busiest period because of election-related business.

“They have the technology to limit the shutdown to specific areas,” he said of the government. “Why should the whole of AJK suffer for something involving a few thousand people in one or two districts?”

That frustration, however, has not translated into broad support for JAAC, at least in Muzaffarabad.

Dawood said traders strongly backed the movement when it emerged in 2023 over wheat and electricity prices.

But that support has “faded gradually”, he said, since the movement expanded its demands to include the refugee seats issue, which he believes is a constitutional matter that should be resolved by parliament, not through street protests.

“Why protest over something like that and expect it to be resolved on the road?” he said.

Salma Ahmed, a 34-year-old mother of two and a salon owner in Muzaffarabad, said the internet shutdown has also hurt her business.

She has been unable to print marketing material and banners for her salon because of the connectivity disruption. Staff she had planned to bring from Islamabad have also declined to travel because of the unrest.

Ahmed said the public supported JAAC’s earlier demands because they brought tangible relief through cheaper wheat and lower electricity bills. The dispute over reserved seats, however, has generated little public interest.

“That issue really doesn’t concern us,” she said. “It has nothing to do with our daily lives or needs. It should be resolved constitutionally, not on the road.”

Conflicting realities

Government officials, meanwhile, insist life has largely returned to normal across most of the region.

Deputy Commissioner Munir Qureshi told Al Jazeera that internet access has been maintained at a limited number of locations, including banks, and that road closures are confined to parts of Poonch Division.

Beyond those areas, he said, movement across Muzaffarabad and Mirpur divisions remains unrestricted, while election campaigning is continuing as planned.

That account contrasts sharply with what residents in Poonch and Sudhnoti describe: an internet shutdown with no exceptions that they have encountered; a mobile network that, according to college principal Masood Khan, struggles to sustain even a basic phone call; and, in Iqbal’s case, fuel shortages that nearly cost his brother his life.

Iqbal, for his part, says he no longer intends to vote in the upcoming election, now scheduled for August 10 in Poonch Division.

“This time, if we vote, we’d be voting for people who are brutalising us,” he said, referring to the clashes between the security personnel and the protesters.

Dawood, the businessman in Muzaffarabad, takes the opposite view.

“I will certainly be voting,” he said. “I wish JAAC’s supporters also recognised that the solution to these problems lies through parliament, not through blockades.”

For Ahmed, however, the election is almost beside the point.

“This prolonged internet closure is affecting me every single day,” she said. “How long can this go on? Why make us suffer for it?”

For Khan, the educator watching a cohort of students lose an academic year, the question is larger than any single election.

“Who will be held responsible for that?” he asked. “Who even thinks about the future of these children?”

Reporting originally appeared via Al Jazeera. Read the full source for additional context.