New Delhi: Pakistan may be afflicted by huge outbreak of Coronavirus back home but that doesn’t deter it from making hollow rhetoric and spreading false propaganda against India.
Despite two months of lockdown, the Coronavirus numbers have witnessed sharp increase, leaving behind China.
Now, it has come to light that people in Gilgit-Baltistan of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) are facing severe threats to their life in wake of COVID-19 outbreak due to lack of medical facilities and food shortages add to their woes.
The region bordering China’s Xinjiang province has already reported over 800 coronavirus cases but has no medical infrastructure to deal with the crisis. Sources reveal that Gilgit-Baltistan has only two old model ventilators and it has not received any medical aid and supplies from Pakistan to deal with the situation.
Only 2 ventilators in Gilgit-Baltistan
Dr Amjad Ayub Mirza, a human rights activist from PoK tweeted, “Only two ventilators available in Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan and China have started the construction of USD 14 billion Diamer-Basha Dam today. This clearly shows that the Pakistani military or civil governments do not care about our people.”
The occupied territory has been facing lockdown for over two months and lack of planning and supplies of essential commodities is making people upset.
Mohammad Bakar Mehedi, a lawyer based in Astore, said: “The spread of coronavirus has led to widespread unemployment in Gilgit-Baltistan. There is no system in place to address the grievances. Inflation has skyrocketed. The government has not been proactive. They have issued deadlines till 5 pm in some cases. Does coronavirus not transmit after 5 pm?”
He added: “They (government) receive funds and donations, but they use those funds for their own purpose and not for the welfare of people. However, they do not realise that it is the people who have mandated them to power and position. I hereby request the authorities to pay attention to this region, which was already deprived of rights. Now with coronavirus, the unemployment has grown massively.”
A record low number of testing in the region with a population of 15 lakh not only reflects Pakistani intent for the region but also raises an alarm for the number of casualties the region could report in coming times.
Imran govt making PoK a dumping ground
Last month, Chief Minister of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, tweeted, “Hospital across AJK (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) has received around 3 lakh PPE kits from a military hospital, Rawalpindi but the kit we got in our hospital were already used before. Some of the masks had a red stain on them, after lab testing it was found those were paan (betel leaf) stain.”
“As per our hospital protocol, we destroyed all kits to ensure no infection gets spread in our hospital. It’s shameful that after receiving fake Made-in-China testing machine, AJK has now become a dumping ground for used PPE kits,” the Twitter thread added.
The hospital was constructed with humanitarian assistance donated by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the President of the United Arab Emirates to alleviate the sufferings of the people of the region, who were affected from the devastating earthquake in 2005.
