Terror camps are thriving in PoK, confirm local people and leaders

Terror training camps have been thriving in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) for years, according to people living across the area who have shown resentment to the Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI for having made their region a haven for anti-social elements.

Residents of Muzaffarabad, Kotli, Chinari, Mirpur , Gilgit ,Diamer and various parts of the Neelum Valley say their lives has been made a living hell by the terror training camps as the lawless men, who train here, plunder local villages and molest the women of the area.

They say that their region is being used by the ISI to further its proxy war against India.

In various interactions, people and leaders in the region spoke about the daily extortion and harassment caused the terror groups who are located near the Line of Control (LoC).

"If management doesn't end Taliban's terror camps and 'no-go' areas in Diamer, Gilgit, Baseen and others, then we will take action," a local leader of Gilgit was seen as saying.

Residents confirm that the region is being used as nothing more than a staging post for Pakistan's proxy war against India. They say they have no sympathy for the terror groups who are perhaps hated more in PoK than anywhere else.

PoK leaders like Arif Shahid exposed the ISI terror nexus in the region and paid for it with their lives.

Shahid has been found on record saying that the poor people of Pakistan are being exploited by the ISI to wage a Jihad against India in which only the Pakistan Army is interested.

Shahid fought tooth and nail against Pakistan's oppression in PoK before he was shot outside his residence in Rawalpindi on May 14, 2013. He was 62. The investigation into Shahid's murder is still inconclusive, and there is no closure to the cold-blooded murder, so far. The ISI is blamed for conspiring and executing Shahid's murder.

The people of PoK have been demanding the removal of terror camps for years but the state has always turned a deaf ear.

Earlier, PoK witnessed a series of protests by residents against rigged polls that saw Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), coming to power.