Clashes with banned group in Pakistan-administered Kashmir leave an officer dead

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Clashes between police and supporters of an outlawed political group left at least one police officer dead and several others wounded on Tuesday in the Pakistan-administered Kashmir, officials said.

The violence erupted after Pakistani authorities reopened roads that followers of the banned Joint Awami Action Committee had blocked for nearly a month. Residents have complained of food and medicine shortages as well as restricted transport due to the group’s blockade, according to a police statement.

The region’s home secretary, Chaudhry Guftar Hussain, accused armed members of the group of killing the officer by opening indiscriminate fire.

Hussain announced earlier Tuesday that security forces were launching an operation across Pakistan-administered Kashmir “to clear all roads blocked by the banned Jammu and Kashmir Awami Action Committee at entry and exit points.”

The Joint Awami Action Committee is an alliance of several groups that has been staging sit-ins at multiple locations since last month, demanding the abolition of 12 seats in the regional Legislative Assembly reserved for refugees who migrated to Pakistan from Indian-controlled Kashmir decades ago.

The group argues the reserved seats give disproportionate political influence to people who live outside the territory. The dispute escalated in early June after the regional Supreme Court ruled that the refugee seats are protected and cannot be abolished without a constitutional amendment.

The seats were created to represent people displaced from Indian-controlled Kashmir by the decades-old dispute over the Himalayan region.

India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir but claim the territory in its entirety. The nuclear-armed neighbors have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since gaining independence from British rule in 1947