Shahbaz’s efforts helped resolve protest issue: Haq

Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Anwarul Haq appreciated on Wednesday Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s swift response to the demands of protesters and announced a “huge financial package of Rs23 billion despite economic constraints.

Addressing a press conference along with all the members of his cabinet here, Prime Minister Anwarul Haq categorically rejected the malicious propaganda that the status of AJK was being changed by turning it into a province of Pakistan.

“Nobody was expecting the huge package announced by the Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif for the people of AJK,” Haq told reporters. “The AJK government is enabled by this package to slash power tariff and increase wheat flour subsidy as demanded by the protesters,” he added.

Haq criticised the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) leaders, who led the protesters, for failing to timely announce the acceptance of their demands, which led to few untoward incidents in which loss of lives and property of the law enforcement agencies occurred.

“Some miscreants were behind the chaos at the behest of enemies,” Haq said. “The law will take its course against them after due process and no one will be allowed to weaken the bond between the people of Pakistan and AJK,” he added.

He said that the people of Kashmir were linked with Pakistan through a strong bond of love. He assured that all such elements, who wanted achieve their vested interests by taking refuge behind public demands would be defeated.

The AJK prime minister told reporters that the police observed maximum restraint on his direction and not a single bullet was fired by them despite the martyrdom of a policeman and torching of vehicles of police and other government officers.

According to Haq, one young police officer was martyred, 273 policemen sustained injuries and three vehicles of the law-enforcement agencies (LEAs) were set ablaze by the miscreants, despite the fact that the LEA personnel did not confront the protesters but were being deployed to the national installations.

Responding to a question, the AJK prime minister said that after the announcement of the subsidy package, the government was able to reduce prices of flour as well as electricity. He stressed that steps would be taken to prevent misuse of the subsidised rates.

Haq expressed his resolve to control power theft and enhance recovery. He also pledged to adopt a fool-proof mechanism to overcome the smuggling of wheat and flour.

“Otherwise, this lowest rate flour will not be available to the poor people and the mafias will make money through smuggling,” he said.

When asked about the JAAC demand for abolition of the privileges of the government functionaries, Haq said that his cabinet ministers and other government functionaries were availing minimum privileges compared their counterparts in other provinces. He added he had ordered a judicial review on this issue.