Aga Khan Higher Secondary School, Seenlasht, Chitral, organized student activities to commemorate International Day of Peace on September 21, 2019. As a responsible seat of learning imparting educational excellence to the youth in the region, the school focuses both on academic and co-curricular activities.

The activities aim to prepare its students to compete with the challenges offered by the globalized society of today and to make them responsive to the challenges faced by modern society. In doing so, the focus of the school is to bring international dimensions, themes, and activities into the teaching and learning processes of the school by incorporating the sustainable development goals (SDG’s) of the United Nations with the syllabus and students learning outcomes.

These objectives are being met by organizing student activities in collaboration with the British Council’s International School Award initiative and in partnership with national and international Schools. Observance of International Peace Day was one of the 21 such activities the school plans to perform during the academic year 2019.

The Day was observed after 2^nd break where students participated in different creative activities to commemorate the world peace day. The guest speaker was Mr. Qazi Salamt, religious Scholar from Chitral and the chief guest was Mr. Sherdoom, manger ITREB lower Chitral and attended by other guests.

Specific activities included Observance of “Minute of Silence”, Presentation by students on the “Charter of Madina”- the earliest document on peace presented 1400 years ago by the Prophet of Islam Muhammad (PBUH), student’s talk show on the topic, “Peace Education through Pakistan Studies”, student research presentation on “Noble Peace Prize”, and student’s sketch making competition on Noble Peace laureates.

The MoC shedding light on the importance of the day linked it with the theme of the Day for 2019 and said that “Climate Action”-the theme of this year, and campaign for the protection of the environment is in the priority list of the school. “The activities of the school including cleanliness campaign, plantation drive, observance of World Environment Day and World Wild Life Day to name a few, observed by the school this year by involving government departments, civil society and partner school is a witness of the school’s international commitment towards achieving the SDG’s of the UN”, added the comparer.

A faculty member of the School, Mukhtar Ali shared the objectives of the program. The guest speaker explored the notion of peace as propounded in the Quran and in the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He said that “Quran is actually promoting peace by discouraging enmities, fostering fair relations and unity through its various verses”. He shared that the notion of peace has been referred to in the Quran as a “blessing-Rahma”, and students should refer back to the holy Quran if they wish to know the philosophy of Peace.

The chief guest said that to bring peace in the society, the students should focus on their self-transformation and become responsible citizens at the first place and work towards the elimination of all sort of injustice and prejudice, which will result in the permeation of peace in the society. He invited the students to explore the three words, Islam, Musalman and Salam-the three words signifying the faith, its subscribers and their method of interaction-all referring to various dimensions of the notion of peace.

The venue of the program was decorated with students artworks depicting the theme of the day and various SDG’s of the UN. The school is planning to share these activities with a foreign school through the partnership mechanism as envisioned in the British Council’s International School Award initiative.

The program concluded with the words of thanks by the principal of the School Mr. Tufail Nawaz.

The constitutional status of Gilgit-Baltistan is as old as the Kashmir issue. The people of Gilgit-Baltistan liberated their motherland from the illegal occupation of Maharaja Regime. People constituted a local government in the region thereafter, newly created Muslim country Pakistan extended its de-facto jurisdiction over the region but again attached Gilgit-Baltistan to the Kashmir issue.

State of Jammu & Kashmir, ruled by Maharaja before the partition of Indo-Pak, divided into three parts main portion was captured by the Indian army which is still called occupied Kashmir. A small portion thereof was liberated by the Kashmiris with the help of tribal men, which is called Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The third is GB region which is also considered disputed under Security Council resolutions.

Since all the above mentioned three parts were claimed by both the countries, Pakistan claimed entire Jammu & Kashmir state to be its part as per partition agenda agreed upon by the parties while India claimed the Kashmir state as per so-called accession deed made between India and Maharaja Kashmir.

Kashmir issue prevented the two neighboring countries from friendly relations rather thrown them into wars against. That is what the situation became hurdled for both the countries to declare, the parts of Kashmir state in their de-facto control, to be their integral parts.

India gave a special status to occupied Kashmir under Article 370 of the Indian constitution while Pakistan also awarded special status to AJ&K through an Act of parliament. People of AJ&K have their own Constitution but unfortunately, Gilgit-Baltistan ruled by executive “Orders” imposed from time to time by the Federal Governments in Islamabad, despite a persistent protest against.

The Federal Governments deprived people of Gilgit-Baltistan from their fundamental and constitutional rights, as such there remained nothing but to invoke the jurisdiction of “Supreme Court of Pakistan” hence the issue was taken to Supreme Court and got a verdict from there with the directions to provide fundamental rights safeguarded by an independent Judiciary guaranteed by constitution even if needed to emend the continuation of Pakistan but the verdict given by august “Supreme Court” in well-known case “Al-Jihad Trust” was turned no ears by the Federation for decades.

Thereafter, many petitions under Article 184(3) were submitted before Supreme Court even the federation itself filed a petition before against an order passed by the Supreme Appellate Court GB whereby, “Executive order 2018” was suspended. The Supreme Court heard all the petitions about the constitutional status of Gilgit-Baltistan pending before, after getting legal assistance of learned Attorney General, counsel for petitioners and even getting the assistance of senior jurists as “amicus curiae”.

During pendency, a committee headed by learned Attorney General submitted a new “proposed order 2019” before august Supreme Court. The honorable Court with the assistance of all the jurists appeared in the case and honorable Attorney General once again visited through the proposed “order” modified and sanctioned it by annexing the same with the judgment announced on 17-01-2019 as part of it and directed forthwith promulgation of the same by the President of Pakistan on the advice of the Federal Government and in any case within a fortnight hereof;

The Federal Government, either on one or another pretext did not comply the mandatory directive of august Supreme Court and used delay tactics to abuse the process of law apparently submitting applications to get an extension of time to advice President of Pakistan to promulgate the attached order.

The honorable Supreme Court did not extend any further time on the application submitted before the Court and during the pendency of the application the Federal government again has taken a U-turn by filing another application to amend the “annexed order 2019”.

The situation jolted bar counsel and other bar associations in GB to resist mala fide move of the Federation and their representatives appeared before on the date of hearing.

The plain reading of the judgment, I have come to the conclusion that the federation cannot introduce an amendment to the “GB Order 2019” unless the same is promulgated by the President, thereafter to the Federation can introduce amendments within the ambit of the directive (II) of SC in its judgment. The amendment application submitted without first compliance of the directives issued by the Supreme Court amounts to contempt of court.

The situation, in this case, is parallel with that situation once has arisen in judicial history when PM Yousaf Raza Gillani using executive tricks impliedly refused to comply the directives issued by the august Supreme Court and had to face contempt of court and resultantly lost his premiership.

During proceedings on 22-05-2019 although the honorable judges (as reported in the newspapers) showed their annoyance through their remarks it seems honorable judges acted upon the principle of judicial restraint, otherwise the Federation might be taken for contempt of court.

In further proceedings, if the Federation insists its plea of the amendment and also requests for getting further time to send its advice to the president for the promulgation of the proposed order which is annexed to the judgment that the legal status may turn towards contempt of court.

The federation must understand that the honorable court has provided judicial imprimatur and permanence to the proposed “order” and restrained the executive from their whimsical interferences and awarded unassailable judicial protection to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan in the cited judgment.