This morning I read a few lines by Akram Sohail and sat holding my phone for a long time. For four months, his national identity card has been blocked. Pension suspended, bank account closed, mobile SIM deactivated. A man who signed the files of this system all his life does not exist in the records of this very system today.
I know Akram Sohail as a poet and a writer. He is a retired secretary of the government of Pakistani-administered Jammu and Kashmir. Education, electricity, agriculture, public works—he held all these departments. He is not a masked man, not a fugitive. This is the man whom the state itself kept seated in its chair for years.
And now listen to what he was punished for. He writes that initially he thought all this was the result of supporting some constitutional demand of the banned Action Committee. Now it turns out that the matter is the opposite. According to him, he had opposed a blanket subsidy on flour, saying that the subsidy should only go to the deserving, and for this, the "flour mafia" had his name placed under the Anti-Terrorism Act.
I want to pause here and say one thing clearly. This is Akram Sohail's own statement. Before me, there is neither any notification nor any explanation from the government. But this is precisely what has shaken me the most. A former secretary did not even know for four months what his crime was. In a country where the accused has to search for their own charge, there is no law, only lists.
And the lists are growing longer. On 5 June 2026, the Joint Awami Action Committee was banned. On 18 June, 150 names were placed on the Fourth Schedule. Then at least 14, including journalist Danish Irshad, then in October 31 more. With every name, movement, expression, and financial transactions are placed under surveillance. The decision is made in a cabinet room, and the punishment arrives at the person's doorstep. Nowhere in between is there a court.
For Akram Sohail, this is not new either. In 2014, when as Secretary of Industries he halted an auction of precious stones by declaring it illegal, a summary to remove him was initiated, and the High Court had to restrain the government. In other words, this man stood in the way of plunder before and paid the price before as well. The difference is that back then it was the threat of a transfer; now his very existence is suspended.
In a country where the accused has to search for their own charge, there is no law, only lists.
I know the next point will sting many people, but I cannot help saying it. I have seen this method before. Across the Line of Control, India does the same: Public Safety Act, UAPA, detention without trial, confiscated passports, snatched jobs. In Palestine, Israel does the same: administrative detention and that web of permits in which an entire nation's breath is tied to the ruler's stamp.
Yes, the scale is not the same. The rubble of Gaza and the graves of the Valley are not equal to the blocked SIMs of Muzaffarabad, and I am not one to claim this equivalence. But the mindset is the same. The occupier everywhere believes one thing: the identity, bread, and voice of the subjugated are a favor from him, not a right. To be taken back whenever he pleases.
My question to Islamabad is straightforward. You act as an advocate for the oppressed of Srinagar around the world. Then with what face do you stop the pension of an elderly poet from Kotli? Your own Supreme Court has said that an identity card is not a luxury, but a fundamental need of every citizen. Does this principle end once it reaches this side of the Jhelum River?
Akram Sohail has posted an article from a Srinagar weekly on his page. The subject is Kashmir's resistance literature, and in it, he is counted among the tribe of fearless and outspoken poets. Think about it: the one whose boldness is praised in print in Srinagar has his identity confiscated in Muzaffarabad. The entire tragedy of our divided state lies in this single sentence.
My real fear is not for Akram Sohail. He has a name, a pen, twenty-one thousand readers. My fear is for those who have nothing. If a person who served as a state secretary, who openly opposed a demand of the Action Committee, is not spared, how will a student from Rawalakot be spared? A shopkeeper from Neelum? A reporter from Bagh?
When supporters and opponents begin to be written on the same list, the crime is no longer an opinion; speaking itself becomes the crime. I will call this system by its name. Where speaking is a crime, identity is a concession, and a pension is the price of loyalty, it is called fascism.
Unblock Akram Sohail's card. Release his pension. And bring forward the paper on which a poet has been written down as a terrorist. We all want to read it.
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