Ali Jan Profile picture
Freelance Journalist, ex-BBC, ex-Reuters,ex-AFP, ex-Herald. Winner of BBC News Award of best reporting in the West and Central Asia region

Feb 5, 32 tweets

Kashmir Valley’s Humanitarian Catastrophe Monetised: Petrol Bills and Privileges in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir
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The immense suffering of people in Indian-administered Kashmir has been monetised in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, as official documents reveal how those in power continue to profit from the crisis without accountability.

Official expenditure records provide a clear, documented account of this monetisation.
Travel Expenses (Excluding Petrol)

Records for the financial year 2024–25 show that a senior official of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Cell (JKLC) claimed substantial travel expenses—excluding petrol—for ten months, from June 2024 to March 2025.

The travel expenses were as follows: June 2024 – Rs 60,000, July 2024 – Rs 72,000,Aug 2024 – Rs 36,000, Sept 2024 – Rs 84,000, Oct 2024 – Rs 72,000, Nov 2024 – Rs 38,000, Dec 2024 – Rs 84,000, Jan 2025 – Rs 96,000, Feb 2025 – Rs 96,000, &March 2025 – Rs 72,000.

The total travel expenditure, excluding petrol, amounted to Rs 710,000—approximately Rs 2,400 per day over nearly 300 days.

Petrol Expenses
Petrol expenses were claimed for eleven consecutive months, from May 2024 to March 2025.

They were: May 2024 – Rs 84,000, June 2024 – Rs 86,522, July 2024 – Rs 118,335, Aug 2024 – Rs 109,000, Sept 2024 – Rs 80,500, Oct 2024 – Rs 98,135, Nov 2024 – Rs 71,400, Dec 2024 – Rs 103,500, Jan 2025 – Rs 119,973, Feb 2025 – Rs 112,000, & March 2025 – Rs 110,424.

The total petrol expenditure stands at Rs 1,093,789, corresponding to over 4,000 litres of fuel over eleven months—an average of nearly 13 litres per day over approximately 335 days.

This level of consumption is comparable to a daily long-distance commute from Muzaffarabad to Islamabad, despite the official’s residence and office being in the same city.

This is not an isolated case. For decades, authorities in Pakistan-administered Kashmir have monetised the plight of people in Indian-administered Kashmir while portraying themselves as champions of the Kashmir cause.

Grand promises were made, but these promises were never intended to translate into action—they were designed to sustain perks, privileges, and political insulation. The system has not “evolved” over time; it has functioned this way from the beginning.

The limits of this rhetoric became clear in August 2019, when much of the political spectrum in Pakistan-administered Kashmir publicly distanced itself from Indian-administered Kashmir after India’s unilateral actions.

That moment exposed what decades of slogans had concealed: promises of solidarity that rarely translated into concrete support.

Even today, political elites in Muzaffarabad continue to invoke humanitarian crises to justify perks, allowances, and authority. This has been happening for decades, with salaries, allowances, petrol, travel, vehicle maintenance, and overseas trips dominating budgets

rather than meaningful engagement with the Kashmir issue.

The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Cell was established in the early 1980s to advance the Kashmir cause. From the start, however, its mission was co-opted into a system of patronage. Appointments within JKLC were rarely based on merit;

political loyalty outweighed professional competence. Supporters, relatives, and cronies were accommodated. Advocacy became a pretext, while government employment, influence, and material benefits became the true objective.

Since the early 2000s, JKLC has been funded primarily through the Liberation Cess, deducted from government employees and other sources. Funds are allocated to salaries, pensions, allowances, fuel, travel, vehicle maintenance, and foreign visits.

In the last financial year alone, more than Rs 300 million was spent on these heads. Between June 2020 and June 2025, total expenditure is projected to exceed Rs 1 billion, with the bulk directed toward administrative consumption.

There is no public audit, no outcome-based reporting, and no evidence of meaningful engagement with the Kashmir issue on international forums.

The system in Pakistan-administered Kashmir profits from the continued suffering of people in Indian-administered Kashmir. Deaths, enforced disappearances, and unmarked graves are treated not as tragedies, but as tools to sustain budgets, authority, and privilege.

Arbitrary detentions, torture, extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, and prolonged military operations are cited not to demand accountability, but to justify a bloated administrative system where salaries, perks, and authority go unchecked.

Increasingly, many in Indian-administered Kashmir see this system not as support, but as a threat. Families of the disappeared continue to wait—for truth, justice, and acknowledgement—while elites in Muzaffarabad remain geographically, morally, and politically distant,

insulated by privilege funded in the name of Kashmir.
The JKLC is headed by the Prime Minister of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, who formally oversees appointments, expenditures, and decisions. The misuse of public funds is systematic, authorised, and deliberate.

The evidence points not to neglect, but to exploitation. Killings, torture, extrajudicial executions, and prolonged military operations in Indian-administered Kashmir have been reduced to administrative justifications—tools to protect power and privilege.

Suffering has become a budget line, itemised as salaries, allowances, petrol, travel, vehicle upkeep, and comfort. Officials remain detached from the realities of life under repression, shielded from scrutiny while claiming perks and privilges in the name of the Kashmir cause.

When expenditure linked to unmarked graves escapes accountability, the failure is ethical, not administrative.

In Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the Kashmir cause has been monetised. Suffering has been made useful. As long as it remains useful, the system has no incentive to change.

The demand from the people of Indian-administered Kashmir is clear:
Shut down this exploitative system.

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