Quiet for now: Kohistani landowners call off protest

Demand boundary commission report be made public

KOHISTAN: After 15 days, Kohistani landowners agreed to call off an on-going protest—albeit conditionally—after meetings with representatives from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan proved successful.

The protests started when people from various villages of Kohistan set up a camp near Harban on the Karakoram Highway (KKH). They blocked traffic for two hours every day in protest against the delay in making the Basri boundary commission report public. Landowners also wanted the implementation of a 14-point of charter of demands. In 2014, the charter was accepted by the then chairman of Wapda and the Hazara commissioner.

Successful negotiations

To end the deadlock, the K-P CM’s Adviser, Abdul Haq Khan, PML-N MPA Abdul Sattar Khan, G-B ministers Haji Haider and Janbaz Khan, the Hazara commissioner, Kohistan DC and officials from security agencies held meetings with the protesters Sunday evening. After the huddle, disgruntled landowners, led by Qaumi Watan Party Kohistan General Secretary Asadullah Qureshi, called off the strike when officials assured them the boundary commission report would be made public. Also, the demonstrators were told authorities would start implementing the 14-point charter of demands by February 21.



They also agreed to extend a previously agreed upon ceasefire for another 90 days and form a 10-member jirga of five elders each from Kohistan, K-P and GB to negotiate an enmity which claimed several lives in 2014.

In March of that year, clashes erupted when residents from both regions took up arms against each other over a swathe of land near the site of the Diamer-Bhasha Dam. The nearly 10-kilometre stretch on both sides of Basri check post, which separates Kohistan from G-B, has long been a bone of contention between Diamer and Kohistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4^th, 2016.