At least 20 killed as Pakistani forces crush JAAC long march in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’s Rawalakot

New Delhi: At least 20 people were killed and dozens left in a critical condition on Monday night after Pakistani security forces opened fire on a long march organized by the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) in Rawalakot, in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK). This is the bloodiest single episode in a wave of unrest that has gripped the region since June this year.

The Joint Awami Action Committee said on Tuesday that 19 of the dead had been formally identified, while another body – that of a man who had suffered a bullet wound to the head and carried no identification – lay unclaimed at Palandri hospital. The group warned the toll was likely to rise once daylight returned and communications, cut off across much of the region, were restored.

However, the casualty figures remain contested. A Rawalakot-based outlet, Kashmir Times, put the number at 21 and noted that police in Pakistan-administered Jammu & Kashmir (AJK, as Islamabad calls the territory) had declined to confirm any fatalities at all, with an official arguing that casualty claims from earlier protests had also gone unverified.

The Poonch region’s deputy inspector general of police alleged instead that armed groups linked to the now-banned JAAC had tried to force their way into Rawalakot despite repeated warnings – a version of events sharply at odds with accounts from the ground.

Amnesty calls for independent probe

Meanwhile, international rights watchdog Amnesty International has called for an independent and transparent investigation into reports of the use of lethal force against protesters in POK by Pakistani forces. It has urged Pakistani authorities to restore communication services and allow media and independent observers access to the region.

Isabelle Lassee, the organization’s acting regional director for South Asia, said: “The disturbing reports emerging from Rawalakot are consistent with the Pakistani authorities’ long history of unlawful violence against protesters in Jammu & Kashmir. A prompt, independent, and transparent investigation must be ordered into the security forces’ use of force against protesters.”

“So long as an internet and mobile services blackout remains in place, it will severely impede the independent verification of the full extent of the situation on the ground. We urge the Pakistani authorities to restore all communications access and allow media and independent observers into the area,” she added.

From Mirpur to Rawalakot

The march had set out from Mirpur division on Sunday, with caravans converging on a sit-in at Rawalakot before pushing on towards Muzaffarabad on Monday. It followed the breakdown of talks between JAAC representatives and Pakistani officials, after the committee had given authorities until roughly 1pm that day to meet its demands – among them the release of detained activists and the withdrawal of criminal cases filed against protesters.

Among those killed was Usman Nazir, brother of senior JAAC figure Umar Nazir Kashmiri, whose death quickly became a rallying point for the crowds still gathered in Rawalakot’s Chandni Chowk. The United Kashmir People’s National Party, a diaspora advocacy group, accused Pakistani forces of using live ammunition, heavy shelling and tear gas against unarmed civilians, and called on the United Nations and foreign governments to press Islamabad to halt the use of force.

A ban and months of unrest

JAAC – formally the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee – has spent nearly two years organizing protests across POK over rising flour and electricity prices, demands for greater political autonomy, and the scrapping of 12 legislative seats reserved for Kashmiri refugees settled in Pakistan. Pakistani authorities proscribed the group in June 2026, after clashes in Rawalakot linked to the shooting of a trader by law enforcement officers left at least seven civilians dead, according to Dawn, and reportedly four security personnel dead as well.

Al Jazeera, reporting from the region at the time, put that June toll at 11, while other accounts suggested it may have run considerably higher – underscoring how difficult it has become to establish reliable casualty figures amid the communications blackout Islamabad has imposed on the territory. A separate flare-up in mid-July, after the killing of a paramilitary Rangers soldier, left nine more dead in clashes in Rawalakot and the nearby Tararkhal area, prompting AJK’s home secretary to describe a “clearance operation” against armed groups as unavoidable.

New Delhi renews its criticism

India has repeatedly used the unrest to highlight what it calls Pakistan’s mishandling of the territory it has administered since 1947. The Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, told a weekly briefing last month that India hoped the international community would hold Pakistan accountable for what he described as documented police brutality in POK, and separately accused Islamabad of circulating fabricated footage to deflect attention from its own record.

Pakistan’s government has yet to issue a detailed response to Monday’s violence beyond the AJK police force’s official position that no deaths have been confirmed. With mobile data services suspended across large parts of POK, independent verification of events on the ground remains, for now, largely impossible.