Global Watch | When Words Whitewash Violence: The Media's Blind Spot On PoK

The state erased the evidence, and the press largely accepted that erasure as an editorial inconvenience instead of the most significant news of the summer.

On October 4, 2025, after a week of shutter-down strikes had paralysed Pakistan-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir under a communications blackout, the Government of Pakistan signed an agreement with the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC).

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif hailed the pact, declaring that all conspiracies and rumours had been buried and that the issues had been resolved amicably. A federal minister described it as a victory for peace, ending his remarks with “Long live Azad Kashmir."

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Rana Sanaullah, Adviser to the Prime Minister, later told the Senate that the government had accepted 37 of the JAAC’s 38 demands in writing. The sole exception concerned the 12 seats in the AJK Legislative Assembly reserved for refugees from the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, which, he said, raised constitutional complications.

Eight months later, on June 5, 2026, the same organisation was declared a proscribed body under Section 12 of the AJK Anti-Terrorism Act, 2014. The Home Department’s notification alleged that the JAAC was engaged in terrorism and had acted in a manner prejudicial to the peace and security of the state.

The President of Pakistan-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir approved the designation. Authorities announced a reward of Rs 10 million for information leading to the arrest of four leaders, including chairman Shaukat Nawaz Mir, who had spent nearly two years negotiating with federal representatives before being arrested on June 30.

That is the sequence.

Founded in Muzaffarabad in September 2023 over the price of a 20 kg bag of flour, the JAAC secured a Rs 23 billion federal relief package in May 2024 and suspended its long march after declaring a historic victory. The state continued implementing its demands in stages.

A June 2026 progress report recorded that 24 of 44 points had been fulfilled, 177 FIRs had been withdrawn, and Rs........

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