Unprecedented inflation irks residents in Gilgit Baltistan

Gilgit Baltistan, November 8 : The people of Gilgit Baltistan, a territory under Pakistan's occupation, are facing the heat of rising inflation.
They recently hit the streets against the government to demand an immediate check on the exponential rise in inflation.
Joined in by different political parties, the residents called the current dispensation a failure and said it had only brought misery to the people of Gilgit Baltistan.
Locals blamed that a policy paralysis in Islamabad coupled with unscrupulous intent of Prime Minister Imran Khan's government responsible for the current situation where both the retail and wholesale inflation had touched a historic high.
Opposition leaders including the former Chief Minister of Gilgit Baltistan lamented what he said was an unfolding crisis where every single resident of the region was staring at a state-manufactured catastrophe.
"You (Gilgit Baltistan Government) turn the rich into poor and the poor are further pushed to poverty. People are compelled to beg for their living. There are long queues of people outside hospitals as by increasing the price of medicines, you have compelled the blood pressure, sugar and heart patients as well as the old people to die in agony. Amid all this, you talk about forming a most lawful state; you should be ashamed of yourself and your intelligence", said, Hafiz Hafeezur Rehman, the former Chief Minister of Gilgit Baltistan during a protest.
The prices of staple food including sugar, wheat, flour and pulses have skyrocketed in the past few months in Gilgit Baltistan.
Domestic budgets have been severely hit due to a sharp rise in fuel, food and transportation costs. People say they are barely making their ends meet.
The inflation rate has touched the double-digit mark in Pakistan too but it is particularly high in the illegally-occupied regions.
A local leader said, "Inflation has not just affected the members of Pakistan Peoples' Party but the entire Gilgit Baltistan. Though Pakistan has also been affected by this inflation but still it has factories where goods are being made and when these goods reach Gilgit Baltistan, people are being charged more due to travel and other miscellaneous expenses. Imran Khan and its government have made the lives of people very difficult. It came into power in the name of the welfare of the poor but in these years, the poor have become poorer and the rich have become richer."
While Pakistan has been witnessing economic challenges owing to its incompetent policies, the Gilgit Baltistan region, which is already marginalized, has borne the major brunt of high inflation.
Experts say the economic decline being faced by Pakistan due to its own faults is being compensated for by its illegally occupied territories of GB and PoK and this sudden escalation in the prices could be one aspect of the design.
The employment opportunities are diminishing in Gilgit Baltistan and the price index has gone up. This comes as a major blow to the people of the region whose lives were already battered by systematic discrimination being meted upon them by occupier Islamabad.