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to be drowned by the Diamer-Bhasha Dam, the megaproject rising just downriver. Islamabad, with the Frontier Works Organisation and China Power as its partners, hails the dam as a nation-builder. Once completed, it will be one of the tallest concrete structures in the world, a colossus holding back the Indus to generate 4,500 megawatts of power and irrigate fields far downstream.
But here in the mountains, the dam represents loss: of homes, of orchards, of entire villages. Compensation, residents say, has been promised but not delivered, or delivered unfairly.
“ This road,” said another driver, Jamal, who had been running the KKH since the 1980s.“ Is the only way they have to be heard. No seats in parliament. No voice in government. So, they block the highway, and suddenly Islamabad listens.”
The irony is cruel: the very trucks that bring flour, fruit, and fuel into the mountains are now stranded in their service.
I walked along the line of immobilised vehicles. Some carried cement for construction sites in Gilgit. Others bore crates of apples,
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