The Awami Action Party has issued a stark warning that youth activists affiliated with its action committee will demolish mobile towers along protest march routes if authorities proceed with a telecommunications blackout in Azad Kashmir. The party stated in a post on X that no ruler, law, or court in human history has ever succeeded in suppressing the collective power of the people of any nation, adding that the oppressed people of Azad Kashmir would this time not only repeat history but would also write an entirely new chapter of resistance. Youth activists say they have already finalized a plan in response to reports of a possible telecommunications shutdown across the region.
Authorities have already suspended internet and mobile phone services across Azad Kashmir from 11:30 PM, with the blackout expected to remain in place until June 12. The Azad Jammu and Kashmir government requested federal forces, including Rangers and Frontier Corps, to be deployed across the territory to protect critical installations and sensitive sites. Journalist Nadeem Shah, reporting from Muzaffarabad, confirmed that fresh federal force contingents had arrived in Kashmir following the formal deployment request. Separately, authorities also rounded up 72 individuals linked to the Joint Awami Action Committee, which has since been formally banned, as part of pre-emptive measures ahead of the planned protest activity.
Ahead of a strike called for June 9, residents crowded petrol pumps across Azad Kashmir, stockpiling fuel, food supplies, and other essential goods. Shops and businesses across the territory also witnessed heightened activity as residents prepared for the planned shutdown, wheel-jam strike, and long march scheduled for that date. The combination of a week-long telecommunications blackout, the deployment of federal forces, and the public mobilisation visible at fuel stations and markets paints a picture of a territory bracing for a significant confrontation between civil society and state authority in the coming days.
The threat to demolish mobile towers adds a new and concerning dimension to the standoff, placing critical telecommunications infrastructure directly in the crossfire of a political dispute. Mobile towers serve millions of ordinary users in Azad Kashmir who depend on connectivity for communication, livelihoods, banking, and access to information, and any physical damage to that infrastructure would have consequences that extend well beyond the political actors involved. The threat also underscores the growing pattern across Pakistan where telecommunications blackouts are deployed as tools of political management during periods of civil unrest, and the increasingly confrontational public response those shutdowns generate among communities that view digital connectivity as an essential right rather than a privilege that authorities can withdraw at will.
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