evidence: U.K. High Commissioner to Pakistan Jane Marriott’s visit to Mirpur on January 10 prompted a formal protest from India. New Delhi had similarly relayed its concerns to Washington following U.S. Ambassador Donald Blome’s trip to Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) in October. Mirpur is the second-largest city of the region Pakistan describes as Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), which along with GB forms the Pakistan-administered sections of Kashmir, the subject of the 77-year dispute between the two nuclear armed South Asian neighbors. India claims both AJK and GB as part of its territory, in addition to its own administered Kashmir, which New Delhi bifurcated into two union territories – Jammu and Kashmir, along with Ladakh – revoking their special status in 2019. The territories governed by India are, likewise, claimed by Pakistan. [...] Multifaceted protests have exploded in Gilgit-Baltistan, which Islamabad has longed carved into a geopolitical loophole for its strategic interests. However, it is the part of Kashmir that Pakistan describes as "azad," meaning free, where a volatile rupture with Islamabad is most palpable. A civil disobedience movement led by the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) has been underway in AJK over the past eight months, protesting inflated electricity and wheat prices. A significant percentage of the AJK population hasn’t paid their electricity bills since the summer of last year, with observers asserting that the majority of local households are partaking in the boycott.