ISLAMABAD: Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) DG Lt-Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said political system was working in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), and wondered how the state would pay salaries and provide facilities with collecting taxes.
He was answering a question about the violence-based politics that the Joint Awami Action Committee is pursuing in AJK.
It was a student who had sought his comments on the subject during a question and answer session that the ISPR chief held with the students of different universities in AJK earlier on September 15. However, the video clip is now viral on social media.
Earlier, AJK Prime Minister Chaudhry Anwarul Haq in an interview to HUM News how JAAC — a so-called civil society organisation — is exploiting the situation despite that the fact only two of their demands could not be accepted.
Read more: Azad Kashmir prime minister exposes real agenda of JAAC
One of the two demands says large commercial or industrial electricity consumers too should be treated as domestic consumers while the second calls for abolishing the refugee seats in the AJK Legislative Assembly.
Lt-Gen Chaudhry mentioned the fact that education and health systems as well as infrastructure were much better in AJK when compared with other parts of Pakistan.
As the ISPR chief talked about the tax collection, he reminded the students that over 30 per cent people in AJK were government employees, including those serving in military.
He said protest was a [democratic] right, but violent politics served no one as it only harmed economy.
Nature had bestowed the AJK with many resources, said the ISPR chief and vowed that the future of Kashmir was “Kashmir Will Become Pakistan” — a slogan resonating with the Kashmiri people on the both sides of Line of Control for the last 78 years.