At least 30 people have been killed over two days of violence in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, according to the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), which says Pakistani security forces opened fire on unarmed protesters in Mirpur on July 28, 2026, after killing 25 people the day before. The deaths came as the territory held the first round of a three-stage election that local groups have contested, and as a communications blackout severed the region from the rest of Pakistan.

The Guardian, which broke the story, could not independently confirm the death toll because journalists were barred from the area and internet services remained shut down. Pakistani media largely ignored the protests and the alleged killings.

What the protests are about

The JAAC, also called the AJK Rights Movement, launched its campaign after calling for peaceful demonstrations on September 29, 2025. The movement demands political and economic rights, electoral reforms, and the abolition of a system of reserved legislative seats for refugees from Indian-administered Kashmir. Twelve seats in the local legislature of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) are set aside for these refugees — a framework the JAAC says distorts representation. The Associated Press reported that the latest violence erupted after the Supreme Court of Pakistan-administered Kashmir ruled on those 12 reserved seats.

A year of escalation

The current spike follows a full year of building unrest. In October 2025, at least eight people were killed in four days of violent protests, according to Reuters. Earlier protests over food and electricity subsidies had already left four dead and over 100 injured, the AP reported. By June 2026, the situation worsened sharply: Reuters recorded 11 killed in Rawalakot on June 8, with more than 70 injured ahead of a JAAC rally. By June 18, the death toll had surpassed 20. On July 14, Reuters documented nine more deaths in clashes across Tararkhal and elsewhere. Cumulative fatalities since June are now estimated at roughly 40, according to The Guardian.

The government's response

The local government's response has been forceful. After imposing a ban on the organization, the AJK government designated JAAC a terrorist group and arrested its political workers en masse. A "clearance" operation on July 27 saw protesters and law enforcement clash directly. Dawn reported that the opposition group Ayeen-i-Pakistan was itself blocked from traveling into AJK and staged a nearly two-hour sit-in in response. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari publicly called for an end to the protests on June 14, arguing the unrest was damaging Pakistan's reputation globally.

JAAC spokesperson SA Khan accused Pakistan's security agencies of firing on unarmed protesters in Mirpur on July 28 and then removing evidence. Khan said security forces took away dead bodies and locked down the local hospital. He claimed JAAC possesses photos and video evidence of bodies lying in streets. An anonymous Mirpur resident corroborated elements of this account, telling The Guardian that violence erupted early Tuesday afternoon when people gathered to protest the previous day's killings. The resident said bodies were taken to the hospital and then went missing, and that nearby shops closed after the violence.

International reactions and competing claims

Amnesty International's regional director for South Asia, Isabelle Lassée, said disturbing reports were emerging from Rawalakot consistent with a Pakistani state crackdown. The organization called on Pakistani authorities to immediately lift the communications blackout. UN human rights chief Volker Türk called for an investigation into the deadly violence.

Pakistani authorities rejected accusations of state involvement in killing civilians. Information minister Atta Tarar alleged at a press conference that the protests were receiving funds and instructions from India. Khan dismissed the accusation outright. The cross-border finger-pointing is a familiar pattern in Kashmir, where both Islamabad and New Delhi routinely blame unrest on their respective sides of the Line of Control (the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan) on the other's intelligence services.

The elections, scheduled across three rounds with July 27 as the first, proceeded amid the violence. Al Jazeera reported that polls opened in a vote marred by unrest. The JAAC, which had called for a complete shutdown leading to widespread sit-in protests, disputes the legitimacy of the electoral framework itself.

The bigger picture

The broader context here is a territory where accountability has been systematically weakened. A communications blackout prevents independent verification, the domestic press has largely self-censored or been directed away from the story, and the principal protest movement has been legally reclassified as a terrorist organization. That combination leaves any outside assessment of events on the ground dependent on accounts from actors who are themselves parties to the conflict. The UN's call for an investigation and Amnesty's appeal for restored communications are, at this stage, the principal international pressure points. Whether they translate into access for independent observers will depend in large measure on whether Pakistan's civilian government can act independently of the security establishment's operational preferences in AJK — a question that the historical record of civil-military relations in Pakistan does not answer with much optimism.

What sets the current moment apart from the episodic unrest of the past year is the convergence of three simultaneous developments: a disputed election, a mass protest movement that has survived being banned and facing mass arrests, and a security response that has escalated from crowd-control tactics to alleged lethal force against unarmed civilians in public streets. The next two rounds of voting, dates for which remain scheduled, will test whether the electoral process can absorb the political grievances driving the protests — or whether the cycle of repression and resistance deepens.