India criticised the acts of protest which were happening in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and claimed Islamabad was implementing a policy of plundering resources there. During a weekly media briefing, the spokesperson of the Elemental Affairs Ministry, Randhir Jaiswal, made the point that these demonstrations had occurred as a result of the economic consequences of Pakistani use of the occupied areas.

Jaiswal told the council that Kashmir and the parts of Ladakh, occupied by Pakistan, were an integral part of India and that Pakistan only did it by force and it was an illegal occupation. He, thus, unearthed how Pakistan’s oppressive policies do not in any way benefit the people of the nation. At the same time, they, in turn, are bared the chance to get ownership of the resources in the name of development.

The demonstrations in PoK unfolded as the result of the unacceptable high prices of wheat flour, excess power tariffs and taxes, leading to casualties, including the loss of lives. The disquieting situation enabled the Pakistani authorities to dedicate substantial funds to the tune of ₹23 billion to be disbursed promptly in the area.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, during his visit to Muzaffarabad, the PoK capital, has described such protests as sincere longings and condemned the acts of hooligans incurring chaos and sparking disorder. Sharif pledged to constitute a panel which would remedy the people’s irks, an indication that the current arrangements are impermanent.

Apart from this, the other committee is to take on vital matters like water charges and the Neelum–Jhelum hydropower plant. The authors of these guidelines, on the other hand, aimed at the grassroots resolution of the root cause of the protests and managing competing interests in the region.

This particular juncture of agricultural business in Kashmir brings into the limelight the fraught relationship between geopolitics and local matters, where tensions in contested regions interlock with local factors. India’s reaction illustrates that it is India’s loyal and persistent worry over Pakistan’s actions in PoK and its persistence to the entire region of Jammu and Kashmir of the assertion of sovereignty.

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