Kalabagh Dam for financing assistance, but due to strained relations with Afghanistan (a Soviet ally), this request was denied. The government then approached the World Bank, which agreed to finance the project. At this point in Pakistan's history, previous dam projects such as Mangla (under Ayub Khan) and Tarbela (under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto) never faced any opposition. Even Kalabagh was approved by the Central Development Working Party, without dissent. The issue of Kalabagh started to become politicized after the execution of the former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a highly popular leader from the downstream province of Sindh. Adding to the controversy,
Mangla Dam of the Pakistani community originates from the Dadyal-Mirpur area of Azad Kashmir. There are 747,000 Mirpuris in the United Kingdom, and the British Mirpuri community forms about 70% of the British Pakistani community. The percentage is even higher in northern cities and towns. In Bradford, an industrial town in north-west England, it is estimated that roughly three-quarters of the population is from Mirpur. The project was designed primarily to increase the amount of water that could be used for irrigation from the flow of the Jhelum and its tributaries. Its secondary function was to generate electrical power from the irrigation