GILGIT: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has concluded a high-profile fact-finding mission to Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), comprising Council members Salima Hashmi and Muzaffar Hussain, senior journalist Ghazi Salahuddin, and HRCP regional coordinator Israruddin.
During its five-day visit to GB, the mission found political workers, rights activists, the legal fraternity and religious leadership expressing their disappointment at the federation’s failure to integrate GB with the rest of the country.
The groups that the mission consulted were of the view that GB should, at the very least, be granted provisional provincial status or, as a last option, granted a governance system similar to that of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
The political leadership that met the mission also demanded that GB be made part of the electoral reforms process being undertaken to ensure free and fair elections in this region. Based on the evidence, the mission believes that the abolition of State Subject Rule has paved the way for exploitation of local natural resources by external private corporations and individuals not resident in GB.
This has led to demographic changes in the region, to the consternation of residents, who also feel that GB is being excluded from development projects, primarily those being launched under CPEC.
The mission is especially alarmed by the apparent surge in suicide cases in various parts of GB, particularly in district Ghizer. A large number of these victims comprise women and the mission has reason to believe that some cases of honour killings have been labelled suicide, and thus ‘forgotten’.
The mission is gravely concerned to learn that the victims of the 2010 Attabad Lake disaster have still not been compensated or rehabilitated. The glacial lake outburst floods that occurred recently on the Shishpar glacier have also uprooted over a dozen families A detailed report documenting the mission’s findings and recommendations will be released later, says the HRCP.