Pak's Gilgit-Baltistan reforms, attempt to divide Kashmiris: JKLF - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Terming the Gilgit-Baltistan reforms as a 'colonial-type' package, the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) has said that it would stage a long march to Islamabad on November 5 (Thursday) demanding the withdrawal of the package. Interacting with media persons during a press conference here, JKLF president Syed Faisal Nazki criticised the package saying the powers would not be vested in the people of the region but in the Gilgit-Baltistan Council. "The Kashmiris considered the Gilgit-Baltistan package as an attempt to divide their homeland," The Dawn quoted Nazki, as saying. The Pakistan government has announced a special package for the northern areas called the Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self Governance Order -2009 with an aim to secure its causes in the region. Despite the Pakistan government not giving Gilgit Baltistan the status of the country's fifth province, the reforms would see the region having a legislative assembly, a chief minister and a governor. The package has been interpreted as another cosmetic exercise intended to camouflage Islamabad's illegal occupation of the region. The Indian Government has already lodged a protest over the proposed construction of the Bunji Hydroelectric Project in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). The 7000 megawatt dam is being constructed at Bunji in the Astore district of the Gilgit-Baltistan area with the help of China. An agreement was signed in August this year to activate construction of the project, one of the eight 7000 megawatt hydel projects to be constructed. Earlier, India had registered a similar protest against the construction of the Neelum Jhelum and Bhasha Dam projects in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.