State Killings in Pakistan as Kashmir Protest Movement GrowsThe Pakistani military has imposed a communications blackout as it conducts a violent siege aimed at crushing a movement for electoral reform in Azad Kashmir.
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Early on the morning of July 9, 2026, men from a paramilitary force known as the Pakistan Rangers began raiding homes in the village of Gehl Topi, a few kilometers from the city of Rawalakot in Pakistan-administered Kashmir—known locally as Azad Kashmir. It was four weeks after protests over electoral reform erupted in Azad Kashmir, and a curfew was in place. The local mosque announced over its loudspeaker that the Rangers, who operate under military authority, had entered the village, and a crowd began gathering. The armed men opened fire on the crowd, according to one eyewitness and another person who has family members in the village. Hassan Zohaib, who was present at the scene, said his cousin, Muhammad Nasir Khan, 39, was killed. Khan, a night caretaker at a government-run school, who had walked downhill along the Link Road to see why people were gathering. When the Rangers opened fire, a bullet entered Khan’s side, tore through his rib cage, and exited his neck. “We rushed him to the Rural Health Center in Chitra Topi, but there were no doctors or paramedical staff, and the blood loss was too severe. He could not survive,” his cousin, Hassan Zohaib, told Drop Site News. Khan has four children; the eldest is ten. The same day, Zohaib’s family buried a second relative killed by military gunfire in the same village, a 22-year-old named Wajid Siddique. “I am not sure what kind of ammunition they are using, because he was shot in his lower abdomen, which was blown away, and he died instantly,” Zohaib said. “We could not even take him to the hospital.” Neither Siddique’s nor Khan’s death has been reported in the local press, which is subject to intense censorship and has not been allowed to report on the violent crackdown in Kashmir. For eight weeks now the demonstrations in Rawalakot—a city just 40 kilometers away from the disputed Line of Control with India that has become an epicenter of the movement—have been met with live-fire by Pakistani security forces, mass arrests, and a siege of the city. Local officials and hospitals have not shared an official tally of total civilians killed. On July 2, Amnesty International estimated at 40 killed before regional elections began on July 2. Locals who spoke to Drop Site said that number is a significant undercount. Despite the violent crackdown, civilians have continued to demonstrate against local authorities and the Pakistani military. In a video circulating on social media this week, a travel vlogger identified as Aqeel says to the camera, “The streets of Rawalakot are drenched in blood. They are shooting our brothers with the bullets they purchase with our taxpayer money,” as gunshots are audible in the background. Harris Qadeer, editor of the local newspaper Roznama Jeddojehad, told Drop Site that he has documented 89 deaths in Rawalakot and Mirpur as of July 28 by collecting first-hand accounts of funerals, burials, and death records maintained by a civil society group that has been leading the protests. “Forty-five people were killed before July 27, and a list of their names was compiled by consulting their family members. An additional 37 people were killed on July 27 and 28,” he said. On Monday, Qadeer added, paramilitary forces killed 22 more civilians, as well as another 13 the next day. The region has remained under curfew and a complete internet blackout since June 5, 2026. No food or medicine has entered and grocery store owners are not allowed to open for business. Regular announcements from loudspeakers of local mosques declare that any civilian violating curfew, including women and children, will be shot without hesitation. “Armed officers torture anyone who attempts to open for business and a majority of the rations present inside the stores were confiscated by the officers for their own use,” Qadeer said. Local residents of Rawalakot are only able to bring negligible amounts of food and groceries from their relatives in nearby villages. “Patients can still not access any medicines and those who could afford to move had to move to Rawalpindi and Islamabad where they are forced to live in hotels,” he added. Escalating RepressionProtests in Azad Kashmir began in early June over electricity tariffs, wheat prices, and accusations of bribery and corruption by local government officials, led by the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC). JAAC, a coalition of local traders, civil society members, and political activists, has been organizing demonstrations in Kashmir for the past three years. But the core demand from the protesters centers around the allocation of 12 reserved seats in the local assembly for Indian Kashmiri refugees living in Pakistan, which the authorities accepted in September 2025, but backed out as the region approached election day. Within a few weeks, the protests evolved into a Kashmir-wide call for electoral reforms. The 12 seats sought by locals are reserved for refugees who left Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir for Pakistan after the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, which also includes their descendants. These people settled in various parts of the country and are now registered to vote in Pakistan’s four other provinces rather than in Pakistani administered Kashmir. Civil society activists including the JAAC argue that this system takes local governance issues out of the hands of those actually living in Azad Kashmir. Those eligible to run on these seats are not residents of Kashmir and, JAAC argues, therefore do not represent the concerns of locals. Pakistan’s military establishment and the central government have historically used these seats to sway votes in favor of policies that go against the interest of Kashmiris. JAAC circulated a charter of demands with 38 points that formed the bedrock of negotiations between the chief organizers of the protest movement and the Chairman of the Overseas Pakistanis Forum (OPF), Syed Qamar Raza Shah, who is believed to maintain a close relationship with Pakistan’s military chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir. The group is demanding reforms to the system of of assembly seats, elimination of bribery and corruption in government departments, provision of interest-free loans for the youth, elimination of false charges against protesting civilians, and medical treatment for protesters injured by armed forces among others. In a recent video statement published on JAAC leader Sardar Umar Nazir’s Facebook page, he reiterated the demand for electoral reforms. “This election that’s ongoing right now is being carried out at gunpoint,” he said. “We will not create obstacles for this election but we, as JAAC, declare these fraudulent and farcical.” He further invited all residents of Muzaffarabad to reject the elections and continue protesting on the streets of Kashmir. Pakistan’s military junta has shown little tolerance for the protests. The JAAC was designated as a terrorist organization by the government in June. Since then the Pakistan Rangers, along with other security forces working under the Pakistani Army and officials working for the district administration, have been carrying out regular “flag marches”—sending processions of 20 to 25 vehicles carrying masked men, mounted with machine guns, through villages around Rawalakot with sirens blaring. “They’ve spread so much fear and intimidation into the hearts of the residents in that region, to a common village man it is an unbelievable sight,” said Zohaib. “As soon as ten or more people gather just to see what’s going on, they open fire at them.” On June 4, a trader was shot during a confrontation with law enforcement officers. The next day, family members took the body to Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Rawalakot for a post-mortem examination. The request for an examination was denied, enraging locals who began gathering outside the hospital. On June 5, the AJK government issued a notification declaring JAAC a proscribed organization under the First Schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act 2014, citing “terrorism” and conduct “prejudicial to peace and security,” listing 147 members of the civil society group as a members of a terrorist organization. Then, late on the night of June 6, JAAC organizers returned to Rawalakot from a meeting in Khaigla, eight kilometers from the city. Unidentified men opened fire, killing Shahzaib Habib, an activist who worked closely with the JAAC leadership. The following night, clashes broke out in Rawalakot between supporters of JAAC and the police, resulting in the deaths of seven civilians and three police officers, according to the police commissioner of Poonch, Sardar Waheed. The local government then imposed a legal measure banning all public gatherings and suspending cellular service across the region. That measure has remained largely in place since. “Three people were killed in my village on the same day, there is no access to the internet and barely any access to cellular services. It is impossible to tell how many people have been shot dead by the paramilitary forces so far,” said Zohaib. Several government employees have been fired, and pensions have been seized for several retired military officers who were accused of participating in the protests. On July 9, JAAC called for a region-wide strike to close markets, businesses, educational institutions and public transport. Protesters established a sit-in at Drek, a suburb on the outskirts of Rawalakot, among six other protest venues, while Pakistan Rangers and Frontier Constabulary (FC) forces were deployed en masse. More than 45 civilians were killed in the violent crackdown that followed. On July 27, as Mirpur division voted, the JAAC marched into Rawalakot city, defying the region-wide curfew. The two days that followed were the deadliest in terms of civilian casualties. Members of the FC and the Rangers situated themselves on rooftops to try to quash any protests in the street. Reports emerged that security forces had shot civilians indiscriminately, including those who had no part in the protest. Shehreyar Zulfiqar, born and raised in Rawalakot, moved to Lahore in 2018 and regularly visits his family. He now speaks to his mother by phone every three days, on a line that has become increasingly unreliable. His family lives within a 100 meter distance from the hospital and has witnessed much of the repression up close. His neighbor Farrukh Aziz, who ran a grocery store, was shot dead on July 27.
“He was not a part of the march, he had nothing to do with the political atmosphere in the city. He was only grabbing groceries from his own store for his family members,” Zulfiqar told Drop Site News. “Snipers killed him with a headshot, they were perched atop a nearby building and they killed him when he was on his way back home.” Usman Nazir, the brother of JAAC leader Umar Nazir, was also killed on July 27 when the Rangers opened fire on protesters in Rawalakot. In the same neighborhood, an officer of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), squadron leader Uzair Aziz, lives with his family. His father Abdul Aziz, who was a school teacher at a local high school, and his brother were also shot by armed officers in the streets of Rawalalot as the two were on their way back home. “His father passed away and his brother is severely injured,” said Zulfiqar. “They have not even returned his father’s dead body to their family. And this is not even a civilian, this man leads a squadron in the air force.” Aziz’s family, Zuliqar added, were not involved in the protests; his family has lived in Rawalakot for four generations. In one of the many videos from the scenes of protest on the ground, a young student is seen reciting Sarfaroshi Ki Tamanna, an Urdu poem written by Bismil Azimabadi, which roughly translates to “The desire to sacrifice our lives is now in our hearts; let us see how much strength is in the arms of our executioner.” That student was Osama Jameel, a geology PhD scholar at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, and a member of the Jammu Kashmir National Students Federation (JKNSF), a group that has been aligned with the JAAC for the better part of a decade. On July 28, he was gunned down at Chinar Chowk, while marching towards Muzaffarabad. Omer Khan, a member of the JKNSF was privy to the negotiations between the government and JAAC from a year ago. “They had signed an agreement and accepted the demands, including the one about 12 assembly seats after eight civilians were killed in September 2025,” he said. “When elections came closer, they backed out of every promise they made because they [the military establishment] have been using these seats to install their own leadership in the Kashmir assembly, overturning the democratic choice of the people of Kashmir.” “They Have Subjected Us to Collective Punishment”
Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khwaja Asif has labeled the protesters as enemies of the state and ruled out any possibility of future negotiations with the JAAC. On Tuesday, Asif told reporters, “There will be no dialogue with the protesters. I bracket them with India. I put them in the same category as India and consider them as enemies of Pakistan.” The crackdown has triggered a major backlash in the Kashmiri diaspora, including in London where more than 1.5 million Kashmiris from Pakistan live and where thousands gathered in a massive demonstration against the violence this month. JAAC activists on the ground are now planning to conduct a march to enter Rawalkot on Saturday in defiance of the siege, before continuing in a planned procession onwards to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Kashmir. Qadeer, the local journalist in Azad Kashmir, was forced to relocate his family members to the city of Rawalpindi in Punjab. He told Drop Site that the situation has become unbearable for journalists and activists still attempting to document conditions inside the province. “No journalist is allowed to move, in fact no journalist is acknowledged as a member of the press even if they have a card identifying them as such. Everyone with video recordings in their phones are forced to delete them,” Qadeer explained. “They torture everyone attempting any journalistic activity. They have beat me up in public as well.” He added, “They are punishing us all indiscriminately, they are subjecting us to collective punishment and they want to make an example out of us. They are using battle-grade weapons, the violence is senseless.”
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