Pakistan-Administered Kashmir: Killings, Blackouts, and a Ban on the JAAC Movement

03 Aug 2026 ·Editorial Desk·Azad Jammu and Kashmir

Pakistan-administered Kashmir — officially Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) — has passed through one of its deadliest years on record in 2026, as security forces moved to suppress a mass protest movement led by the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC). Dozens of people have been killed, the movement has been outlawed under anti-terrorism legislation, and the region has faced repeated communications blackouts and heavy paramilitary deployment.

A movement rooted in economic grievance

The JAAC — an umbrella coalition of traders, transporters, lawyers, students, and activists — took shape in 2023 around basic economic demands: relief from steep electricity tariffs, an end to flour smuggling, and the restoration of subsidised wheat. The movement reached an early flashpoint in May 2024, when a long march toward Muzaffarabad ended in clashes that killed at least three protesters and a police officer; the government responded with promises of subsidies.

In late September and early October 2025, the committee issued a 38-point charter of demands and shut the region down with strikes. Authorities imposed a communications blackout, and clashes in Muzaffarabad on 1 October left several dead — official accounts cited three police personnel and one civilian, while protest leaders said twelve of their supporters had been killed. The gap between those two counts would become a recurring feature of the crisis.

The 2026 flashpoint: twelve reserved seats

The current escalation hardened around a legal dispute. After the courts upheld the constitutional status of twelve AJK Legislative Assembly seats reserved for Kashmiri refugees living elsewhere in Pakistan, the JAAC intensified its campaign, demanding the seats’ abolition on the grounds that non-residents were distorting local representation.

On 5 June 2026, the AJK government declared the JAAC a proscribed organisation under the region’s Anti-Terrorism Act. Within days, authorities arrested scores of its leaders and placed 147 activists on a watch list under the law’s Fourth Schedule. Amnesty International warned that designating a protest movement as terrorism marked a dangerous escalation of the crackdown.

Deadly force, raids, and a blackout

As delayed regional elections approached, the territory was locked down. Officials deployed roughly 4,000 police and paramilitary personnel — including the Federal Constabulary and the Rangers, who operate under military authority — and imposed repeated internet and communications shutdowns that disrupted banking, transport, and the flow of information.

The killings mounted through June and July:

On 8 June, clashes in Rawalakot, in Poonch district, killed several people ahead of a banned rally.
On 9 July, members of the Pakistan Rangers raided homes in the village of Gehl Topi near Rawalakot during a curfew and, according to eyewitnesses, opened fire on a gathering crowd.
On 14 July, at least nine people were killed — one officer in a police raid near Rawalakot, and seven protesters and a police officer in a separate clash in Sudhnoti district.
During the late-July polling in the Mirpur division, marchers moving toward Muzaffarabad again came under fire, with the JAAC reporting its heaviest losses of the entire movement.

A JAAC leader described the Rawalakot killings as a “massacre.”

A contested death toll

Casualty figures diverge sharply depending on the source — a gap the JAAC attributes partly to bodies being removed from hospitals and streets, an allegation the government denies. The figures below are as reported by each body and remain disputed.

Source	Reported killed	Period
AJK authorities	at least 28 (including security personnel); 79 injured	since 4 June
Amnesty International	at least 40 (34 protesters, 6 police or paramilitary)	to late July
JAAC (protest movement)	30+ in late July alone; higher overall	July

Calls for accountability

The response from human rights bodies has been unusually direct. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called for prompt, impartial investigations into the deaths and voiced alarm that anti-terrorism powers were being used to criminalise peaceful assembly and justify sweeping internet shutdowns. Amnesty International urged authorities to lift the communications blackout and investigate the use of lethal force. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said it was deeply alarmed and demanded an independent inquiry into the Rawalakot deaths.

As of early August 2026, the blackout, the ban, and the deployments remain in place, and the full toll is still contested. What is not disputed is that a movement built on demands for cheaper flour and fairer representation has been met, repeatedly, with live fire.