Daily Diary (DD) - Day 125 of 2022

2121hrs:

Break day 11 of district (Kotli) wide tour

Given a variety of factors, it is possible that the remaining 7 political workers of 60 due to be interviewed in district Kotli may be postponed for a while longer than expected. We are already into break day 11 of our tour and have some immediate matters to attend to.

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Daily Diary (DD) - Day 94 of 2022

1012hrs:

Day 7 - District (Kotli) wide tour as part of Internal Political Process - AJK

Updated stats of completed interviews of tribal politicians/political workers: 19 of 60

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Despite a 14 hour Ramadhan, we are still able to conduct our life and struggle with minimal disruption.

On the road in Charoi:

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Daily Diary (DD) - Day 93 of 2022

1125hrs:

Day 6 - District (Kotli) wide tour as part of Internal Political Process - AJK

Updated stats of completed interviews of tribal politicians/political workers: 17 of 60 

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It is also the first day of Ramadhan today in AJK. 

We continue our struggle for an internal political process in this territory - which God has bestowed his bounties on - yet the people feel compelled to earn a living or socially interact on the basis of deceit and falsehood.

There cannot possibly be a higher level of contradiction in the words and actions of a God fearing society, that feels compelled to be corrupt.

What is it that less God fearing countries have that we don't?

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Daily Diary (DD) - Day 90 of 2022

0950hrs:

Day 5 - District (Kotli) wide tour as part of Internal Political Process - AJK

Updated stats of completed interviews of tribal politicians/political workers: 16 of 60 

We have completed phase 1 of 6 phases of our district wide internal political process. 

Phase 2 began today.

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Daily Diary (DD) - Day 45 of 2022

0901hrs:

Day 26 at Martyr's Square Kotli

We thought we'd launch the UK banner from here, while we wait for matters in Luton to pick up....

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Attention from other parts of AJK:

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Update 1600hrs: 

The 5 prospective members of the District Constitutional Conciliation Committee - Kotli...from a JKA nationalist perspective. 

Remember that the committee comprises of 10 members and the other 5 will be from the Pakistani nationalist perspective, comprising of 5 current or former MLAs of district Kotli. 

The following submitted to: SHO City Kotli via DFC Ijaz as follows, from Shaheed Chowk:

For those of you who can't read Urdu:

1) Toqeer Gilani - Kotli

2) Sher Nawaz Ali Advocate - Nikyaal

3) Quayyum Raja - Khuiratta

4) Secretary Iqbal - Charoi

5) Raja Haq Nawaz - Sehnsa

It should also be noted that all the above were nominated by the public, not me. If anybody disagrees with any of the above they can object and suggest an alternative. If so, I will put the relevant nominations to the public once more.

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Other activists and journalists - both at home and abroad - are zeroing in on Malik 

Waseem's issue:

 

If you can't read the text in the post above, here it is:

This is Malik Waseem behind bars: For the crime of protecting his home and family and refusing to forgo a claim to stay on land that he has been living on since 1949 in AJK. He had been evicted and was legally fighting to get the land back. He has a stay of order from the court to not disturb him but the police still evicted him.

It is another side of the Kashmir dispute where many Kashmiris are working in the AJK territory to see a change to various legislations and public policy that will give Kashmiris in AJK more license to be their own voice. They would have more say over the entire region and dialogue as to how they can move forward.

Malik Waseem is a third generation refugee from Kupwara in IOK. Ratan Singh was the original owner but was either killed or displaced in 1949 after forced migrations and killings by religious communities at the time. The land is described as"Evacuee Property." 

A search is underway by Malik's family, legal team and supporters for the descendants of the original owner but it is India in this case who have all the land records and upon being asked will not release them.

It seems to be a very sad state of affairs and an example of removing someone unfairly from land they have been living on since 1949 and now the local officials want to reclaim it and sell it for money. It is senseless to jail for someone for standing up for their rights in a just and fair way.

Malik Waseem and his family should surely be allowed to stay on that land. It does not seem right or fair to make them homeless. 

#LetKashmirDecide

End of post...

Closer to home:

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Daily Diary (DD) - Day 173 of 2020

2205hrs:

I even managed to conduct our weekly programme live from near the LOC today!



A lot of attention is needed for various aspects of public interest, beyond the traditional sloganeering that we've been accustomed to.

It could almost be described as a do or die situation.

I consider it my duty to make as many of my co-citizens as aware as possible, in terms of what lies ahead.

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Daily Diary (DD) - Day 10 of 2020

1350hrs:

In Charoi today....and it is a very welcome bright day...whereby the Peer Panjaal mountain range is also glistening across the LOC.





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Welcome to our world:



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Daily Diary (DD) - Day 340 of 2019

1138hrs:

Yet to have breakfast as we have no money. We also need to shift to a newer accommodation which will work out cheaper and also provide us an opportunity to cook for ourselves. This will bring down our costs of eating out and hopefully a healthier diet will be attained, given the very low quality of cooking oil/ghee used in hotels throughout AJK and beyond.

We do have 80 (UK) pounds in the UK but we want to keep them there so that we can save up for 5,000 pounds worth of communications technology that we need on the ground here.

Various local co-citizens are being canvassed for public funding and we hope to receive something imminently. This is just another task we have on our hands apart from all the other functions we are performing for public interest here.

Late in the afternoon, we produced the following:



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I owned the domain maloomaat.net for many years until my then domain provider tried to take payment for other domains that I didn't need. Maloomaat means information in Arabic and Urdu. I also have a blogspot domain of the same name viz. maloomaat.blogspot.com This used to be a frequent activity for me to put questions to my co-citizens on a regular basis and assess public opinion from there. In 2011, this was the pre Whatsapp era. Many, if not most of my questions disturbed the Pakistani State and they tried very hard to use the local AJK authorities to prevent me from pursuing this line of activity. They failed of course and so did the Pakistani mono-narrative in AJK.

SMS Democracy was what I called it then and I decided to re-activate it today for the following question:

'Awaami Assembly' (People's Assembly) ko kaise bayan karengey AJK ke tanazur me? (How would you define it in the context of AJK?) 3 jumlo ki had tak. (in max. 3 sentences) Shukrya - (Thank you) 

Healthy feedback has been received and it is a pity that I still have many pending questions and feedback from 2011 that I still have yet to upload. That data is in another drive which is under repair.   

I also had an opportunity to read up on the following and learned to my horror that the origins of the London Bridge Attacker trace his family back to AJK, district Kotli and Kijlaani in tehsil Charoi to be precise. As a community and diaspora, we have much to address:

We, d citizens of #AJK & its diaspora - especially n d #UK - should be troubled by d fact that this indoctrinated terrorist originated from amongst us. Legally speaking, he wasn't a Pakistani as his forbears came 2 d UK from #JandK a territory not part of any other country.

— Tanveer Ahmed (@sahaafi) December 8, 2019

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Daily Diary (DD) - Day 249 of 2019

1818hrs:

This following trend is amplifying itself on Twitter and Facebook:

Myself Tayyab Hameed From Hajira AJK. As a citizen of Jammu and #Kashmir , I demand a joint Constituent Assembly of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.#JammuKashmirHasOwnChoice
#Stand_With_PNA#StandWithKashmir #KashmirWantFreedom#TeamKashmir pic.twitter.com/fcuLJWyJwR

— kHaN TaYYaB (@74yy48) September 6, 2019

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Today happens to be an auspicious day for our Pakistani neighbours:

How can anybody beat that? The Pakistani State is the world's number 1 in this regard.

— Tanveer Ahmed (@sahaafi) September 6, 2019

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We have received reports that a similar public initiative to cross the LOC - as conducted in Charoi the day before yesterday - has been emulated in Khuiratta today. Many people crossed and some have been injured. More reports in due course......



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The following is a growing trend too:



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The public is incensed at this move by the Pakistani State to quell the freedom of movement in AJK. Reports of up to 3,500 members of the Punjab Constabulary (PC) and possibly Rangers too have been brought into Poonch division to stop our public from converging at the LOC in Tithrinote, Hajeera tomorrow. 

Both security and freedom in AJK are the prerogative of the AJK public. The mere presence of Pakistani security forces incites and provokes unrest in the local population. There is already a lot of bad history between the PC and Poonch from the 1950's.

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This accurately depicts the economy of war, motored here since 1947.

Pakistan on the left and India on the right, with the apple of Kashmir precariously balanced between the 2: 




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While our public were on a mission to cross the LOC in Khuiratta, senior representatives of the Pakistani State were on a mission here too, on their Defence Day. This is Imran Khan's second visit to AJK since India's blockade of the Valley on August the 5th. He was met by his army chief and was accompanied by foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, defence minister Pervaiz Khattak and chairman Kashmir committee Syed Fakhar Imam:



Well, I did write about the proposed Pakistani army withdrawal from AJK beginning from tehsil Khuiratta on that very day in August when it seems all hell broke loose in Jammu & Kashmir. Day 217 of 2019 was the 5th of August. 

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Daily Diary (DD) - Day 247 of 2019

2325hrs:

Some of our people have become more pro-active than others it seems. Charoi is a tehsil on the LOC with Khuiratta to its North and Smaahni to its South. A large procession of the public marched towards and beyond the LOC at Keri, near Naarakot earlier today. Police stationed to prevent the procession advancing towards the LOC were pushed aside easily on account of being heavily outnumbered. 

Four local residents crossed and one of them - Hussain Khadim - went to the extent of climbing a pine tree and pinning a flag of Azad Kashmir on it, on the Indian-controlled side of J & K. He was shot and injured by Indian fire, reports indicate that he has survived but remains in a critical condition. He was taken to DHQ Kotli from where he was referred to a hospital in Pakistan's capital.

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Here are some notes made earlier this evening:

The words 'securitise' and 'khidmat guzaar' (serviceman/woman) were floating about in this evening's public conversation in rural Dadyaal.

The following questions emerged for the public of AJK and its diaspora:

Do we not need to think about the security of AJK?

Is this even a part of our imagination?

Or are we just enjoying the Azaadi (freedom) marches taking place in various parts of the world in our favour?

Do we understand the functions of governance?

What is civil society, constitutionalism and public policy?

Indeed, what is public interest research and do we, as aspiring citizens of J & K value it? 

Do we participate in or contribute to it?

When does synchronisation take place?

Who takes the responsibility of identifying it and implementing the people's reference?

The nuts and bolts of an internal political process in AJK, was the title of this conversation....

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So, British engagement will become more intense as we proceed ahead. However, we must move away from the United Nations where the aspiring citizens of J & K have no agency:

We appreciate ur concern & effort n presenting ur points. However, with due respect restoring Kashmir's special status is not d aim of d besieged masses, it is something far more substantial, fundamental & enduring than that. Pls refer 2 IIA passed n ur Parliament n 05/07/1947.

— Tanveer Ahmed (@sahaafi) September 4, 2019

And....

Please watch this short video for further elaboration on IIA (The Indian Independence Act): https://t.co/X1FSiS8pKP
Furthermore, as Britain created this law 4 the transfer of power, it remains their duty to implement it, without leaving any loose ends. We have no stake in the #UN

— Tanveer Ahmed (@sahaafi) September 4, 2019

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Here some more poetry today which I incidentally have a habit of ignoring usually. However, at times a few lines can encapsulate the zeitgeist more accurately than thousands of words of commentary:

Zaalimo ka nahi koi mazhab
Zulm ki sarhadey nahi hoti.

Jo kisi ka uthaaye bhoj chaley
In ki phir manziley nahi hoti

Written in Urdu by Akram Sohail

Translation:

The oppressors have no religion
Oppression has no borders
Whoever carries the burden of others
Then has no qualms about the destination  

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