Published: 07:54 PM, 26 August 2026
PoJK Burns: International Community Recognizes Development and Stability in Jammu and Kashmir
On 19 August, Sergio Gor became the first sitting United States ambassador to make a standalone visit to Jammu and Kashmir since India abrogated Article 370 in 2019. He met Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in Srinagar, took a shikara ride on Dal Lake, called J&K “an important part of India,” and said Washington would examine whether to downgrade its Level 4 travel warning. In contrast, residents of Pakistan-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) passed that same week under a communications blockade running since 5 June, with scores of civilians dead at the hands of security forces; the Joint Action Awami Committee (JAAC) remains banned, and sham elections were conducted behind paramilitary cordons. Foreign governments spent three decades wrongly auditing India’s defensive actions in J&K and are now finally realizing that the problem lies with the Pakistani occupation in PoJK. The course correction has come late, but it has finally begun.
Gor might not have used New Delhi’s formulation of J&K as an integral and inalienable part of India, and announced no policy change. What he did was more consequential than a statement. The US State Department keeps Jammu and Kashmir at Level 4, its highest category, while rating India at Level 2. That designation carries commercial weight, voids travel insurance for American visitors, and keeps corporate travel departments away. Gor said the travel warning should be downgraded. Local leaders urged him to withdraw it, calling the advisory a wall between the region and the world.
The ground data also supports this review, as between 2009 and 4 August 2019, J&K recorded 1,435 terror incidents, 382 civilian deaths and 672 security force fatalities. From 5 August 2019 to 1 August 2026, the figures were 652 incidents, 191 civilian deaths and 213 security personnel killed. Terrorist-initiated incidents fell from 228 in 2018 to 12 in 2025, and through the first week of August 2026 the tally stood at 12 incidents, two civilian deaths and two security force casualties due to Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism. However, none of this means the terrorism threat is over in J&K. The Pahalgam attack of April 2025 killed 26 people, and violence has migrated to the Pir Panjal and Chenab belts of Jammu division, where terrain favours small ambush teams of Pakistan-based terror groups.
Still, the winds of change are visible in the region, and international engagement has also grown substantially in recent years. Srinagar hosted the third G20 Tourism Working Group meeting in May 2023, the first major multilateral event in the Valley since 2019, drawing around 60 delegates from member and invitee states. Tourism reached 2.36 crore visits in 2024 before falling to 1.78 crore in 2025 after the Pahalgam incident. The region drew 7.85 crore visitors between 2023 and 2025, compared with 4.76 crore between 2016 and 2018. Under the New Central Sector Scheme, 918 industrial units have registered proposals worth INR 12,665 crore, alongside three foreign investment proposals worth INR 500 crore in J&K. Additionally, the International Film Festival of Jammu and Kashmir is scheduled for September.
PoJK offers no comparable numbers, because Islamabad has ensured none can be collected. Talks between the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) and Islamabad collapsed in late May over the 12 assembly seats reserved for refugees settled in mainland Pakistan, an arrangement that lets Pakistan-based parties decide who governs there. In June, JAAC was proscribed under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2014, and internet and mobile services were cut across the region. Services stayed down for close to 60 days, restored only partially before polling day. Roughly 14,000 police personnel were moved in from Punjab, and the polling numbers were abysmal and mostly fabricated. The Human Rights Council of PoJK documented killings of over 80 civilians, including at least one foreign resident, by early August. However, the JAAC puts the casualties figure much higher. As expected, Islamabad’s answer to the problems of PoJK residents has been to blame India, as it does in Balochistan, without producing any shred of evidence.
Nonetheless, what has changed is that this is no longer only India’s complaint. On 17 July, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, appealed for calm and called for prompt, thorough and impartial investigations into every death, among protesters and security personnel alike. On 7 August, the Secretary-General’s office endorsed that call, saying there must be accountability where peaceful protesters are harmed. Amnesty International’s acting regional director for South Asia, Isabelle Lassee, demanded an investigation into the lethal force used at Rawalakot on polling day and pressed for the blackout to be lifted. The Committee to Protect Journalists has flagged the disappearance of journalist Razi Tahir and his colleague Muhammad Saif, taken from their Islamabad office by men in police uniform on 1 August.
Furthermore, it is possibly the first time that Pakistan has stopped foreign media from reporting in PoJK and even put a telecast restriction on one. Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder reported from Muzaffarabad on 2 August that the city had shut down rather than vote. Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting accused the network of selective reporting and of “yellow journalism,” and access to its English site went dark across Pakistan the following day. The ministry has separately introduced rules requiring foreign journalists to obtain a ‘No Objection Certificate’ before reporting outside Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.
The asymmetry that governed Kashmir diplomacy for three decades was never evidentiary. It was procedural, biased, and full of propaganda against India. J&K was disturbed by Pakistan-sponsored terror outfits; still, local grievances were litigated in court, and elections took place despite disturbances and boycott calls by secessionist outfits. On the other hand, PoJK was always closed, ignored, and hardly any real information came out of the region. Gor’s visit to J&K and statements from international groups on the situation in PoJK belong to the same correction, and neither is finished. The evidence for lowering the warning on one side of the Line of Control and raising pressure on the other has been available for some time. It is now harder to avoid accepting massive changes in J&K and ignore ongoing Pakistani oppression in PoJK.
>> Source: DIRECTUS
Gor might not have used New Delhi’s formulation of J&K as an integral and inalienable part of India, and announced no policy change. What he did was more consequential than a statement. The US State Department keeps Jammu and Kashmir at Level 4, its highest category, while rating India at Level 2. That designation carries commercial weight, voids travel insurance for American visitors, and keeps corporate travel departments away. Gor said the travel warning should be downgraded. Local leaders urged him to withdraw it, calling the advisory a wall between the region and the world.
The ground data also supports this review, as between 2009 and 4 August 2019, J&K recorded 1,435 terror incidents, 382 civilian deaths and 672 security force fatalities. From 5 August 2019 to 1 August 2026, the figures were 652 incidents, 191 civilian deaths and 213 security personnel killed. Terrorist-initiated incidents fell from 228 in 2018 to 12 in 2025, and through the first week of August 2026 the tally stood at 12 incidents, two civilian deaths and two security force casualties due to Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism. However, none of this means the terrorism threat is over in J&K. The Pahalgam attack of April 2025 killed 26 people, and violence has migrated to the Pir Panjal and Chenab belts of Jammu division, where terrain favours small ambush teams of Pakistan-based terror groups.
Still, the winds of change are visible in the region, and international engagement has also grown substantially in recent years. Srinagar hosted the third G20 Tourism Working Group meeting in May 2023, the first major multilateral event in the Valley since 2019, drawing around 60 delegates from member and invitee states. Tourism reached 2.36 crore visits in 2024 before falling to 1.78 crore in 2025 after the Pahalgam incident. The region drew 7.85 crore visitors between 2023 and 2025, compared with 4.76 crore between 2016 and 2018. Under the New Central Sector Scheme, 918 industrial units have registered proposals worth INR 12,665 crore, alongside three foreign investment proposals worth INR 500 crore in J&K. Additionally, the International Film Festival of Jammu and Kashmir is scheduled for September.
PoJK offers no comparable numbers, because Islamabad has ensured none can be collected. Talks between the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) and Islamabad collapsed in late May over the 12 assembly seats reserved for refugees settled in mainland Pakistan, an arrangement that lets Pakistan-based parties decide who governs there. In June, JAAC was proscribed under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2014, and internet and mobile services were cut across the region. Services stayed down for close to 60 days, restored only partially before polling day. Roughly 14,000 police personnel were moved in from Punjab, and the polling numbers were abysmal and mostly fabricated. The Human Rights Council of PoJK documented killings of over 80 civilians, including at least one foreign resident, by early August. However, the JAAC puts the casualties figure much higher. As expected, Islamabad’s answer to the problems of PoJK residents has been to blame India, as it does in Balochistan, without producing any shred of evidence.
Nonetheless, what has changed is that this is no longer only India’s complaint. On 17 July, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, appealed for calm and called for prompt, thorough and impartial investigations into every death, among protesters and security personnel alike. On 7 August, the Secretary-General’s office endorsed that call, saying there must be accountability where peaceful protesters are harmed. Amnesty International’s acting regional director for South Asia, Isabelle Lassee, demanded an investigation into the lethal force used at Rawalakot on polling day and pressed for the blackout to be lifted. The Committee to Protect Journalists has flagged the disappearance of journalist Razi Tahir and his colleague Muhammad Saif, taken from their Islamabad office by men in police uniform on 1 August.
Furthermore, it is possibly the first time that Pakistan has stopped foreign media from reporting in PoJK and even put a telecast restriction on one. Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder reported from Muzaffarabad on 2 August that the city had shut down rather than vote. Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting accused the network of selective reporting and of “yellow journalism,” and access to its English site went dark across Pakistan the following day. The ministry has separately introduced rules requiring foreign journalists to obtain a ‘No Objection Certificate’ before reporting outside Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.
The asymmetry that governed Kashmir diplomacy for three decades was never evidentiary. It was procedural, biased, and full of propaganda against India. J&K was disturbed by Pakistan-sponsored terror outfits; still, local grievances were litigated in court, and elections took place despite disturbances and boycott calls by secessionist outfits. On the other hand, PoJK was always closed, ignored, and hardly any real information came out of the region. Gor’s visit to J&K and statements from international groups on the situation in PoJK belong to the same correction, and neither is finished. The evidence for lowering the warning on one side of the Line of Control and raising pressure on the other has been available for some time. It is now harder to avoid accepting massive changes in J&K and ignore ongoing Pakistani oppression in PoJK.
>> Source: DIRECTUS
