Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan is said to use the occasion of Pakistan Day, observed each year on March 23, to make a public announcement that Pakistan occupied territory of Gilgit-Baltistan has been incorporated into its federal system as her fifth provisional province.

Gilgit-Baltistan, formerly named the Northern Areas, was only allowed to have its own assembly in 2009. The Gilgit-Baltistan assembly is controlled by the state of Pakistan from Rawalpindi where the chief of Pakistan army General Qamar Javed Bajwa has his headquarters.

Eminent PoJK historian and political commentator Dr Shabbir Chaudhary who lives in exile in the UK writes in his book titled ‘Legal Status of Jammu and Kashmir’: “everything in …Gilgit- Baltistan is controlled by Islamabad. Even the school curriculum is written by them, and our children are not taught history of Jammu Kashmir.” (p. 148)

Gilgit-Baltistan was part of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir until November 1, 1947 when Major Alexander William Brown, the former political agent of the Gilgit agency, launched a coup against Maharaja Hari Singh and arrested Governor Brigadier Ghansara Singh. It was major Brown who actually replaced the state flag with the Pakistani flag and announced its accession to Pakistan.

He had no power to take that decision, yet as Indian troops were pushing the Pakistani invading army out of Kashmir in October 1947, Brown acted in desperation in order to deny India the passage to central Asia.

Currently, Gilgit-Baltistan and her dry port of Sost at the Pak-China border right up to the sea port of Gwadar in Balochistan are key to China’s economic expansionist design. The militant insurgency in Balochistan has brought the China-Pakistan-Economic-Corridor (CPEC) to a standstill. A massive military operation allegedly supervised by the Chinese PLA is under way to crush Baloch rebels.

It is in this backdrop that China has been exerting pressure on the Pakistan government to make sure that CPEC is made foolproof in Gilgit-Baltistan. Pakistan’s solution is to make PoGB into its 5th province and take full control of the administrative matters along with intensifying its plunder of our natural resources.

Under the current circumstances granting mining licenses to non-residents in PoGB has become a great cause for concern for locals who have been protesting for months and demand cancellation of any mining licenses issued to aliens.

This hampers the loot of natural resources of Gilgit-Baltistan by Chinese companies, most of which are state owned. By incorporating PoGB into Pakistan’s federal set up it will become possible to impose direct rule from Islamabad and any one could be granted a mining license.