Pakistan bars relief goods to flood-hit Indian Kashmir

Pakistan on Saturday barred activists from taking relief goods intended for flood victims to the border of Indian-controlled Kashmir. Around 300 protesters from Pakistan-administered Kashmir took 11 truckloads of relief goods to the border town of Chakothi in an attempt to send them across the border for flood victims on the Indian-controlled side of the mountainous region. Pakistani authorities stopped the activists in the town of Chakothi, around five kilometres from the Line of Control (LOC), which divides Indian and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.

We stopped them because we did not have any instruction by the ministry of foreign affairs or the government.

Tehzeeb-un-Nisa, senior administration official in Chakothi district

The floods, which hit on September 7, have been particularly devastating in Srinagar, the capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir where thousands of people lost their homes and were stranded for weeks without aid. They caused devastating economic losses running into billions of dollars to the area’s famed carpet exporters, with separatists heavily criticising New Delhi’s response. Kashmir has been a flashpoint in South Asia since the subcontinent was divided by Britain at independence in 1947 into India and Pakistan.

We will come again after Eid with more relief goods, food and medicine and will sit here until permission is granted to send it across the border.

Abdul Aziz Alvi, chief of Kashmir chapter of Jamat-ud-Dawa, a Pakistan-based Islamist group

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