On the night of June 8, 2026, authorities in Pakistan-administered Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) ordered mobile internet and phone services suspended from 11:30 PM, with the blackout slated to run until June 12. The cut came hours ahead of a June 9 region-wide shutdown and wheel-jam strike called by the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) — a civil-rights coalition the AJK government had just proscribed under Section 12 of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Anti-Terrorism Act, 2014. Police arrested roughly 72 people linked to the group, including core leaders Anjum-ul-Zaman and Raja Sohaib Javaid, and imposed Section 144 in Muzaffarabad (Dawn; Express Tribune).
The JAAC's core demand is narrow and political: abolishing 12 AJK Legislative Assembly seats reserved for refugees from Indian-administered Kashmir, which the committee says let mainland parties engineer governments in Muzaffarabad. The timing sharpens the stakes — June 9 was also the day candidates began filing nomination papers for AJK's July 27 general election (VoicePK). A communications blackout layered over a contested seat dispute, mass arrests, and an election filing window is not a neutral public-safety measure. It is a thumb on the scale.
The strongest case for the shutdown
Governments do not order blackouts for sport, and the case for this one deserves a fair hearing. AJK's 2024 and 2025 protest waves turned violent, with clashes between demonstrators and the Frontier Constabulary leaving people dead, and viral video and live-streamed coordination demonstrably accelerated crowd mobilisation. AJK Prime Minister Faisal Mumtaz Rathore framed the ban as a line against "mob rule," distinguishing peaceful assembly from forced business closures and attacks on state property (VoicePK). On that logic, a short, geographically bounded suspension that prevents a riot from being organised in real time can plausibly save lives. If you believe the alternative is gunfire in Muzaffarabad's streets, a few offline days looks like the lesser harm.
That argument is real. It is also exactly the argument Pakistan's own judiciary has examined — and rejected as a general licence.
Pakistan's courts already drew this line
In February 2018, the Islamabad High Court, in a judgment by Justice Athar Minallah, declared blanket mobile-network and internet shutdowns illegal. The court held that the federal government and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) have no power to suspend cellular services for routine "law and order" or "national security" reasons. The only lawful gateway, it found, is Section 54(3) of the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organization) Act, 1996 — which is triggered only by a formal Presidential proclamation of emergency for war, external aggression, or genuine internal collapse, not by anticipated protest. Suspending services without that constitutional predicate, the court ruled, violates Articles 9, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 19-A of the Constitution, because access to telecommunication services has itself become a fundamental right (Digital Rights Foundation; Digital Rights Monitor).
That is the proportionality test the AJK order fails. A four-day, region-wide blackout imposed to pre-empt a strike — not to respond to a declared emergency — is precisely the "contradiction with the constitution" the IHC identified when the state tries to bypass emergency procedure through Section 54(3). Pre-emptive, calendar-bounded shutdowns are the antithesis of necessity: they punish an entire population for what a fraction might do, before anyone has done it.
The pattern repeats at the platform level. When the government banned X (formerly Twitter) in February 2024 on "national security" grounds, it told the Sindh High Court the move was a "legitimate exercise" of authority and that Article 19 permits reasonable restrictions for Pakistan's "integrity, security or defense." The SHC was unconvinced, finding prima facie no justification for so prolonged a restriction and directing the interior ministry to withdraw its blocking letter (JURIST). Reasonable restrictions must still be reasonable — proportionate, time-limited, and tethered to specific harm. A standing blackout switch is none of those things.
The bill comes due
The economics make the case against blunt shutdowns even harder to dismiss. Pakistan was the single most internet-shutdown-affected economy in the world in 2024, losing an estimated $1.62 billion across roughly 9,735 hours of disruption, according to Top10VPN's annual cost tracker (Top10VPN). The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, using independent methodology, put 2024 losses at $892 million to $1.6 billion — including roughly $405 million from the X ban alone — and warned that severing connectivity directly suppresses ride-hailing, freelance IT, and the digital export sector Pakistan is trying to grow (ITIF).
Those costs land on shopkeepers, gig workers, and remitting families in AJK who have no quarrel with the JAAC and no part in any strike. A blackout cannot distinguish an organiser from a freelancer filing an invoice or a patient calling an ambulance.
A proportionate path exists
The pro-order objective is legitimate; the instrument is not. Targeted, court-supervised tools already exist: prosecuting individual incitement, geofenced and hours-limited restrictions tied to a specific, documented threat, and — above all — the willingness to contest grievances at the ballot box rather than in the dark. With an election three weeks out, Pakistan's interest is in demonstrating that AJK's institutions can absorb dissent, not switch it off. Its own judges have already written the rule. The state's task is to follow it.