Azad Kashmir’s present crisis should not be reduced to a childish contest between a virtuous street and a heartless state. The grievances that fed the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee did not fall from the sky. Electricity bills hurt people. Flour prices hurt people. Elite privilege offended people. Governments in Muzaffarabad and Islamabad allowed […]
BLA’s War on Women
There is an image the Balochistan Liberation Army wants the world to see: a woman in militant fatigues, renamed as resistance and pushed across sympathetic media feeds. There is another image that it fears more. A nurse sitting before cameras in Quetta, saying she had been misled, trapped and blackmailed. A teenage girl stopped on […]
Rights or Remote Control?
Let us stop pretending that Azad Kashmir is an ordinary political playground. It is not. This is a territory of barely 13,297 square kilometres, divided into three divisions and 10 districts and a Line of Control stretching approximately 528 kilometres. In such a place, one burning road is never just one burning road. One day […]
One Cannot Ride Two Horses Forever
Politics has its own strange justice. Sometimes a party does not lose power because its opponents defeat it. It loses power because it starts defeating itself. The latest controversy over PTI’s resignations from parliamentary standing committees is one such moment. On the surface, it is being presented as another heroic act of resistance. But beneath […]
BLA Stealing Childhoods in Balochistan
The rescue of Khair-un-Nisa should disturb Pakistan for reasons larger than the plot itself. A minor girl from Turbat, according to Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti, was not merely found in the orbit of a banned group. She was allegedly being prepared for a suicide attack in Islamabad, placed under psychological pressure, threatened through her […]
Why the Sympathy?
One has to ask a simple question: why are outlets like The Jerusalem Post so worried about due process in Pakistan, especially highlighting the case of former prime minister Imran Khan? Its latest opinion piece on Imran Khan does something familiar. It begins by conceding that Khan’s 2022 removal through a no-confidence vote was constitutionally […]
Paying Our Way
There was a time, not very long ago, when Pakistan’s economic story was told in the language of survival. Foreign exchange reserves were shrinking, imports were choking the system, and every external payment carried the anxiety of default. In mid-2022, the State Bank’s reserves had slipped below $7 billion-barely enough to cover a few weeks […]
Rule of Law or Lobbying?
When foreign lawyers begin arguing Pakistani court cases in international newspapers, the issue is no longer justice. Human rights lawyer Eric Lewis’s case for Imran Khan’s release in the British newspaper The Independent presents itself as a defence of due process. Strip away the jargon and looming threats, and it becomes advocacy. His column does […]
Kalat: The Facts Matter
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. Some political myths survive not because they are true, but because they are useful. The “forced accession of Kalat” story belongs to that category. It is repeated with such confidence that many now mistake the slogan for truth. […]
Children With Guns
The video from Khyber is short. Too short to fully process, yet long enough to disturb. A line of children-some barely in their teens-being handed out assault rifles. This is not just propaganda. It is a warning. When a militant outfit begins to publicly display armed children, it is no longer merely fighting a war. […]