Pakistan’s colonial exploitation of Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan (PoGB) continues to fuel unrest as protests escalate in the Diamer District against the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA). The people, who have long suffered from Islamabad’s systemic neglect, are demanding justice over the unfulfilled promises linked to the Diamer-Bhasha Dam project. Decades of deceit, inadequate compensation, and forced displacements have left locals enraged, exposing yet another chapter of Pakistan’s exploitation of the occupied region.
A key grievance is WAPDA’s failure to provide the six kanals of agricultural land promised to families displaced by the dam project. Protesters, pushed to their limits by Pakistan’s deceit, have warned that the injustices brewing in Diamer are on the verge of an explosion. Despite their anger, demonstrators have maintained a peaceful stance, staging a sit-in along the Karakoram Highway (KKH), a crucial trade route between Pakistan and China.
The people of PoGB, treated as second-class citizens by Islamabad, have historically faced political and economic marginalization. Their voices are deliberately silenced, with no representation in Pakistan’s legislature, no constitutional rights, and no say in decisions that uproot their lives. The Diamer-Bhasha Dam project is yet another example of how Islamabad and its military-controlled institutions extract resources while leaving locals landless, jobless, and without basic rights.
Further proving Pakistan’s iron-fisted rule, the establishment has now turned to repression to crush dissent. Ahead of a planned public sit-in by Diamer-Bhasha Dam affectees, nationalist leader Shabbir Mayar, Chief Organizer of GB United Movement, was detained and forcibly expelled to Kharmang. He was arrested under a fabricated two-year-old case—an all-too-common tactic used by the Paki establishment to silence voices of resistance.