Gilgit-Baltistan Reforms Order will give equal rights to residents of the area, says PM Abbasi

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has insisted that the Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) Reforms Order 2018 will enable the people of the region to enjoy all those rights that are cherished by people of other provinces, reported a local newspaper, Dawn, on Monday.
His announcement came after protests against the order broke out in 10 districts of GB. To register their protest, members of the opposition tore up copies of the proposed bill and walked out of the assembly.
“From today I as the prime minister and Barjees Tahir as federal minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan have become powerless as far as the affairs of Gilgit-Baltistan are concerned. All the powers have been shifted to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan and no one can abolish the powers which we have transferred to them.”
Adding that the GB Council would function only as an advisory body, he said that from “now onwards the governor as well as all GB High Court judges, including a chief justice, will be appointed from Gilgit-Baltistan.”
Thousands of people, however, protested against the legislation, claiming that the bill will take them back to the colonial era.
“We need constitutional rights, not orders and packages,” said opposition leader Captain (retired) Muhammad Shafi adding that the region had been governed through orders for the past 70 years, according to local daily Pakistan Today.
Legal experts told the newspaper that the order, in its current form, will take away the autonomy that was granted by the 2009 ordinance. The proposed reform legislation confers legislative, executive and judicial powers to the prime minister of Pakistan. With no representation in Pakistan’s federal legislature, the people of GB are deprived of any role in the PM’s election in the National Assembly, claimed the experts.
India, on the other hand, summoned Pakistan’s Deputy High Commissioner Syed Haider Shah, on Sunday, to lodge a protest against the order changing the status of Gilgit-Baltistan, stating that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, inclusive of GB, was an integral part of India and Islamabad had no legal basis for its actions.
“Any action to alter the status of any part of the territory under the forcible and illegal occupation of Pakistan has no legal basis whatsoever and is completely unacceptable. Instead of seeking to alter the status of the occupied territories, Pakistan should immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation,” said the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.