Imran govt to make occupied Gilgit-Baltistan Pak’s fifth province

The Imran Khan government is going to illegally integrate the occupied Gilgit-Baltistan region by making it Pakistan’s fifth province. Pakistani newspaper Express Tribune quoted the Minister of Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan Affairs, Ali Amin Gandapur, as saying that the government has decided to “elevate Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) to the status of a full-fledged province with all constitutional rights, including its representation in the Senate and the National Assembly”.

Gandapur said that Imran Khan would soon visit the region and make the formal announcement in this regard “Gilgit-Baltistan would be given adequate represen- tation on all constitutional bodies, including the National Assembly and the Senate. After consultation with all stakeholders, the federal government has decided in principle to give constitutional rights to Gilgit-Baltistan,” he was quoted as saying. “Our government has decided to deliver on the promise it made to the people there,” Gandapur said.

The minister also talked about the upcoming elections in the region, saying that the voting would be held in mid- November. Several rights activists from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK)and G-B have been critical of the polls, arguing that Imran Khan’s objective is to establish a government of its own choice through elections and subsume in Gilgit- Baltistan in Pakistan.

Under the current circumstances, free and fair elections in Gilgit are impossible because of the colonial Schedule IV and Anti-Terrorism Act which are used to crush civil dissent by arresting people and censoring them if they express their political views, activists have argued.

The Human Rights Commission of Pa- kistan (HRCP), in its new report, has slammed the federal government for nullifying Gilgit Baltistan’s province- like status granted in 2009 as per the Empowerment and Self-Governance Order. The federal government in 2018 withdrew whatever “negligible powers” that had been delegated to the region, it said.

With IANS inputs