New Delhi
13 May 2006
Islamabad's decision to construct the Bhasha Dam in the Northern
Areas despite continuing protests by the people of Gilgit-Baltistan has evoked criticism
on either side of the Line of Control and "exposed the weakness in the word and deed" of
Pakistan's policy with regard to the welfare of the people of Jammu and Kashmir,
according to observers.
The people living in Gilgit-Baltistan have been organising protests for months on end.
The shops in Diamer also observed a strike on the day Pakistan President General
Pervez Musharraf laid the foundation stone of the dam on April 26. The dam is being
built at an estimated cost of 6.5 billion dollars. Construction is expected to start in a few
years and take at last six years to complete.
People like Syed Nazir Gilani, secretary general of Jammu and Kashmir Council for
Human Rights, and Dr Shabir Choudhry, a representative of a PoK-based group, say
Pakistan would travel any distance to assure its interests at the cost of the interests of
the people of Jammu and Kashmir and that it has no legal or moral right to construct a
dam inside a disputed territory and uproot people.
Prof K Warikooo of the Himalayan Research and Cultural Foundation, in turn, quotes a
recent study to suggest that the people of Jammu and Kashmir were suffering due to
Pakistan obstructing the Baglihar dam, Kishenganga project and the Tulbul Barrage
despite the fact that those projects are not prejudicial to the interests of Pakistan or its
people. Yet it was going ahead with the Bhasha dam project, he adds.
The Balawaristan National Front says the dam will displace some 40,000 people and
inundate 33,000 acres of land. It will submerge the ancient town of Chilas and priceless
Aryan and Buddhist monuments such as Chilas-Thalpan complex and rock carvings.
Worse, it says, the project fails to meet the basic international standards with regard to
seismic sensitivity, environment and resettlement.
It also says the dam spells doom for a centuries old way of life and it will render
thousands homeless and destroy a civilisation. "Musharraf had to bow before the anger
and protests of the people of Sindh and NWFP against the Kalabagh Dam. So he turned
his sights to Gilgit-Baltistan, a region that has been deprived of its democratic voice,"
the organisation maintains.
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