JAAC protesters in AJK's Poonch district disperse on fears of major crackdown

MUZAFFARABAD: All three gatherings of the activists and supporters of the proscribed Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) at the fringes of Rawalakot dispersed and their participants returned to their respective areas shortly after midnight, officials said on Friday. The development reportedly came after indications that authorities had planned a major operation to uproot the protesters, who had converged from various districts on the eastern outskirts of Rawalakot in Poonch district. The regional administration and the JAAC have been at odds over various issues, most notably the committee’s demand to abolish the 12 seats in the region’s Legislative Assembly that are reserved for refugees from Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir who settled in mainland Pakistan after 1947. “There is not a single participant at any of the three sit-in sites on the outskirts of Rawalakot. All have unconditionally surrendered before the state and have returned, rather fled, back to their respective areas,” Poonch Divisional Commissioner Sardar Waheed Khan told Dawn in the early hours of Friday. On Thursday evening, the administration had constituted a dedicated contingent of around 1,000 Rangers, Federal Constabulary, Islamabad and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) police personnel for a “decisive action”, apart from staging a flag-march of between 70 and 80 armoured and other vehicles. Recalling that the administration had sent a law enforcement team on Thursday morning to arrest Umar Nazir Kashmiri, one of the hard-line JAAC core members, Khan claimed the move had “already chilled his blood”. In the meantime, Khan said, backchannel messaging with Kashmiri was carried through two seasoned local leaders — District Bar Association President Sardar Javed Nisar and Poonch District Council Chairman Sardar Javed Sharif — who conveyed to him a clear message to surrender in the interest of his personal safety and that of all other participants. According to Khan, Kashmiri responded that if the notifi