Internet services across Azad Jammu and Kashmir have remained suspended for the eighth consecutive day, with residents reporting severe disruption to their daily lives as students, freelancers, and ordinary citizens are forced to travel outside the region simply to access basic online services. Residents reported being forced to travel outside AJK to access basic online services, with many crossing into neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to perform urgent digital tasks they could not complete at home.
Ryan Khan, a student from Muzaffarabad, said he had travelled to Garhi Habibullah in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Friday just to submit documents online at a facility there. He reported seeing dozens of other AJK residents at the same location, all having made the journey specifically to access internet services unavailable back in their own towns. Khan urged authorities to restore internet access immediately, saying that the prolonged shutdown was threatening the academic future of students across the entire region. The fact that residents are crossing provincial boundaries for connectivity is a stark illustration of how completely the blackout has severed Azad Kashmir from the digital infrastructure that now underpins education, work, and basic administrative tasks.
Mobile phone services in Rawalakot were also cut after 8:30 PM on Saturday, further restricting the flow of information from the area during an already sensitive security situation. The internet blackout coincided with a partial shutter-down strike and continued sit-ins by supporters of the proscribed Joint Awami Action Committee across Azad Kashmir for a fourth consecutive day. The additional restriction on mobile phone services in Rawalakot represents a further tightening of the communications environment in the region, extending the blackout beyond internet services into voice and SMS connectivity in at least one major urban centre.
The eight-day blackout is one of the longest sustained internet shutdowns in Azad Kashmir’s recent history and is compounding an already difficult situation for a population that has been increasingly integrated into Pakistan’s digital economy through freelancing, remote work, online education, and digital financial services. For freelancers in Azad Kashmir who depend on continuous connectivity to deliver work to international clients, an eight-day disruption translates directly into lost income, damaged client relationships, and reputational harm that cannot be recovered once deadlines are missed. For students in the middle of examination registration periods or academic submission deadlines, the inability to access institutional portals carries consequences that may affect their academic progress for months. The prolonged nature of the shutdown raises broader questions about the human and economic cost of using internet restrictions as a tool for managing civil unrest, particularly in regions where digital connectivity has become as essential to daily life as utilities.
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