Ground report: Inside Rawalakot, Protest Part of Everyday Life Part-II

This news article is a three-part series. Part-II is published today. Part-I can be read here.

RAWALAKOT: If the journey from Islamabad and Rawalpindi revealed the outer signs of the crisis, an evening at D-Chowk showed how completely the political agitation has entered the daily life of Rawalakot.

I went to the main protest sit-in shortly after arriving in the city, and almost every conversation revolved around the same question: would the newly formed government finally open meaningful negotiations with the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC)?

People who knew I was a journalist repeatedly asked whether talks were possible and whether the crisis could still be resolved politically. I had come to observe rather than predict, so I often turned their questions back to them.

Their answers suggested far more scepticism than optimism.

Around D-Chowk, many regular shops remained shuttered, but the prolonged protest had created an economy of its own. Temporary stalls sold tea, pakoras, cigarettes and snacks, while small groups of men gathered on plastic chairs to discuss politics over steaming cups of tea.

Signs advertising “desi doodh ki chai” were particularly noticeable.

These may appear like trivial details alongside deaths, restrictions and security deployments, but they reveal something important about a protest that has continued for months. A movement lasting this long has to develop its own rhythms because people need food, tea, medicines, water and places to sit while political activity continues around them.

The result is that the protest is no longer simply an event people attend before returning home.

It has become woven into the city’s everyday life.

Walking from D-Chowk towards Eidgah, I encountered one of the starkest physical symbols of the confrontation: a trench dug through part of the road.

Local residents told me Pakistani Rangers had excavated it as a defensive measure to prevent vehicles from approaching their position from that direction.

There was something unsettling about seeing a familiar road physically interrupted in this manner. Roads normally exist to connect neighbourhoods and communities, while a trench exists for exactly the opposite reason.

A little farther along stood memorial plaques carrying the names of young people who lost their lives during the events of July 27 and 28, 2026.

Whatever eventually emerges from political negotiations, those memorials mean that July will remain part of Rawalakot’s collective memory for years to come. Residents pass the names every day, families live beside them, and children grow up seeing them as part of the cityscape.

From the ground, however, one fact is difficult to dispute: the deaths have left a deep psychological imprint.

For residents, the confrontation is no longer only about electricity tariffs, flour prices, political privileges or reserved seats. It is also about the memory of those killed and differing accounts of responsibility for what happened.

At Eidgah, I encountered another important dimension of the movement.

Women maintain their own separate protest gathering, generally arriving around the Zuhr prayer and remaining until Asr.

Their participation is politically significant because this is a socially conservative mountain society, and the continued presence of women demonstrates how deeply the agitation has entered family life.

Mothers worry about children missing school, wives and sisters worry about men travelling through checkpoints or joining demonstrations, and families struggle with transport, supplies and communication problems.

Once a political crisis begins affecting almost every household, it can no longer be described as an affair limited to activists or political leaders.

The following day was Friday, one of the two days on which the Action Committee had allowed local markets to open for a few hours so residents could purchase necessities.

On my way to Khaigala, I passed the grave of Sabir Shaheed near Chak Bazaar, where soldiers were cleaning the area in preparation for Pakistan’s Defence Day on September 6.

Local residents told me flowers are traditionally laid there every year.

The scene captured something of the contradiction of present-day Rawalakot. On one side were the established symbols and ceremonies of the Pakistani state, while only a short distance away a population was involved in an extended confrontation with state authorities over political representation, policing, governance and rights.

Both realities existed within the same landscape.

After Friday prayers, I encountered an even more unusual sign of how political divisions had penetrated community life.

An Ahl-e-Hadith Mosque, which local residents said was currently managed by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, appeared almost empty of its regular worshippers.

Residents told me that a boycott had developed after an individual associated with the mosque management criticised the Action Committee and announcements linked with the protest movement were not permitted from the mosque.

Some residents claimed that, on certain occasions, separate prayer congregations had even been organised.

I could not independently verify every detail of the dispute, but the fact that local people themselves described the boycott in explicitly political terms was revealing.

When disagreement surrounding a protest begins influencing where people pray and with whom they offer congregational prayers, politics has moved far beyond rallies, negotiating tables and government offices.

At Khaigala Bazaar, the effects of limited market openings became even more obvious.

Once the shops opened, it appeared as if the entire surrounding area had arrived to shop at the same moment.

In a way, it had.

When commercial activity is compressed into only a few hours on designated days, families have to purchase several days of flour, vegetables, medicines, and household goods before shutters close again.

The crowd became so intense that I postponed buying what I needed until around Asr.

For residents, the political struggle may be discussed in terms of constitutional reform and state authority, but inside the marketplace it assumes a much more immediate form: have we bought enough food before the market closes again?

On September 5, I visited a medical facility established by people associated with the Action Committee.

Doctors there told me that what began as a medical camp on June 9 had gradually developed into a more organised hospital-like facility.

According to its administrators, three medical centres serving Dareek and surrounding areas had assisted more than 150,000 people during the period of agitation.

That is their figure, and I could not independently audit it during my visit.

They also told me that more than 25 bodies and over 100 injured people were brought to the facility during the violence on July 27.

These numbers, too, should be understood as the account of those running the medical centre rather than an independently established casualty tally.

Yet even leaving the figures aside, the existence of such a medical structure is revealing.

A political movement originally organised around economic and political demands has gradually developed mechanisms to sustain communities affected by disrupted services, shutdowns and violence.

Medical care has effectively become part of the protest infrastructure.

Later that evening, the Action Committee announced its next major step by calling for a complete shutdown and wheel-jam strike on September 9 and renewing its demand for implementation of the agreement reached with the authorities on October 4.

Local estimates placed attendance at the gathering at around 8,000, although the exact number could not be independently verified.

The atmosphere suggested that the strike would represent more than another day of closure.

For the Action Committee, Rawalakot’s commitment to the agitation is already visible, but the larger political question is whether the movement can demonstrate comparable support across other parts of Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir.

That is why its leaders have emphasised participation outside Rawalakot and encouraged supporters to record markets and business centres on September 9 to document where shops close and transport stops.

In effect, the strike is intended not only as pressure on the authorities but also as a test of the movement’s continuing public support.

Among those I spoke with, two concerns surfaced repeatedly.

One was anger over the government’s decision to proscribe the Action Committee under anti-terrorism provisions, a measure supporters regard as an attempt to criminalise a civil rights movement.

The second was worry over the disruption of education.

Parents increasingly spoke about the cost being paid by children who had no role in the political confrontation.

The government maintains that many demands raised by the movement have already been implemented or are being addressed and argues that violent elements have used protests to challenge state authority.

The Action Committee rejects those allegations and insists that its campaign is a peaceful movement seeking economic relief, better governance and political reform.

After months of confrontation, however, the original demands no longer tell the entire story.

Deaths, arrests, communications restrictions and competing accusations of violence have produced additional grievances and deepened distrust.

The movement initially drew strength from issues such as electricity charges, subsidised flour, healthcare, education, infrastructure and political privileges. Among its most contentious political demands has been the issue of 12 Legislative Assembly seats reserved for Kashmiri refugees living outside the territory.

But the crisis has since expanded beyond a checklist of demands.

For supporters of the movement, accountability for deaths, release of detainees and restoration of civil liberties have become central.

For the authorities, the issue increasingly revolves around restoring the state’s writ and normal public life.

That difference was visible everywhere I went.

At the tea stalls around D-Chowk, people talked about political rights.

At Khaigala market, families worried about buying enough food before shutters came down.

At Eidgah, women discussed the difficulties their households faced.

At the medical facility, doctors talked about bodies and wounded people brought in during July.

And along the road, memorial plaques reminded everyone that the confrontation had already extracted a human price.

A political protest may begin with a charter of demands.

In Rawalakot, it has become something much larger: a struggle woven into the geography, economy and social relationships of the city.