Pakistan on Saturday barred activists from taking relief goods intended for flood victims to the border of Indian-occupied Kashmir, where delays in aid have created widespread anger among residents. The frustration has spread to Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) because of the family ties across the de facto border, where movement even for close relatives is tightly restricted.
Around 300 protesters from AJK took 11 truckloads of relief goods to Chakothi in an attempt to send them across the Line of Control (LoC) for flood victims on the Indian-occupied side of the mountainous region. Pakistani authorities stopped the activists in the town of Chakothi, around five kilometres (three miles) from the Line of Control (LoC). "We stopped them because we did not have any instruction by the ministry of foreign affairs or the government," Tehzeeb-un-Nisa, senior administration official in Chakothi district, told AFP. Speaking to the gathering in Chakothi, Abdul Aziz Alvi, chief of Kashmir chapter of Jamat-ud-Dawa, said they would make another attempt.
"We will come again after Eid with more relief goods, food and medicine and will sit here until permission is granted to send it across the border," Alvi said. Sardar Atiq Ahmed Khan, former Prime Minister of AJK, said that the two countries exchanged relief goods at the time of a deadly earthquake in October 2005, 'so there was no point to stop the relief goods now'.
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