The month of May was historical and very crucial for the people of Pakistan for two reasons; they were going to elect a new government to run the country for the next five years and that they had to show that they believed more in peaceful methods for transfer of power rather than taking the violent route. Despite an exhibition of common consensus of the people for peaceful transfer of power, the political campaign remained highly violent and the month of May recorded casualties of 1301 persons (Killed ´ 499 and Injured ´ 702). The data collected throughten newspapers that CRSS uses as the source, suggests that nearly 499 people lost their lives in 274 incidents of violence across the country (for details see Table 1). The violent clashes also left 702 people injured in May.

Table 1: Monthly data of casualties of violence

Like previous months, three provinces, Sindh, Balochistan, and KPK/FATA had the highest number of casualties during the month of May as well (Graph 1).

Graph 1: Deaths due to violence in Pakistan

As usual, civilians were the highest victims of violence during the month of May and militants and security officials had the next highest casualties. Among the civilians, the highest number of victims was of the political candidates, activists, and supporters. The victims of violence belonging to different political parties accounted for half of the total casualties (173 killed and 441 injured) and the victims were from all political parties that were taking part in the election (Graph 2).

Graph 2: Violence Victims and their affiliation

Of the 499 casualties of political violence, Taliban claimed the responsibility for 137 casualties that took place in Karachi [1] and Orakzai, Kurrum Agency[2].

Major causes of casualties:

As in case of previous months, target killing and missile/shelling were the major causes of deaths in May as well. Pie chart II below shows that 35 percent of all the violent incidents were of target killing in nature. Karachi suffered most of the target killing with 124 casualties (24.8 percent of the total dead) during the month under review. Meanwhile, military operations are the second major cause for the loss of life, with militants topping the list of dead. Numerically, 121 militants, 6 security forces and 1 civilian died as a result of military operations. The third major cause of the violence was bomb blasts. In total, 115 persons including 36 security personnel and 79 civilians perished in this form of attacks. Meanwhile, in this month 48 dead bodies were recovered from various areas of Pakistan, specifically from Balochistan and Sindh. Some seven suicide attacks claimed 17 civilians and 5 security forces personnel.

Target killings in Karachi:

During this month, a new trend of crime entered into the nature of violence in Karachi. The ongoing ethno-political and religio-terrorism got mixed with the target killings of electoral candidates and their supporters. The deadly wave of target killing in Karachi that started from the beginning of April continued unabatedly during the month of May and most of the killings had their links to a new kind of target killings ´ Taliban targeting members and supporters of secularist parties, MQM, PPP, and ANP mixed with the turf war among the local political rivals and gangsters. Sectarianism has also taken a new shape in Karachi when religio-militants started targeting political activists that triggered tit-for-tat killings of activists belonging to mainstream political parties (MQM and ANP) and religious political parties (ASWJ and JI). The wave of target killing in Karachi left almost 124 persons dead during the current month and 64 of them were linked to the political parties with MQM, ANP, and ASWJ appearing as the highest affected of these incidents (Graph xxx).

Graph 3: Victims target killings in Karachi

What it shows is that in case of target killings in Karachi, no single organization is fully responsible of the ongoing killing spree in the city. Many actors are involved in it and the two new entrants are Taliban and Gangsters.

Casualties of bomb attacks:

The second category of highest casualties is bomb attacks and the areas that were affected of it during May were in KPK and FATA. Karachi also had bomb explosion during this month (Graphs 4 & 5).

Graph 4: Deaths due to bomb attacks in Karachi

Graph 5: Injured due to bomb attacks in Karachi

Dead bodies found during May 2013:

During May, 48 dead bodies were found from different places throughout the country and the majority of them were found in Karachi (Graph 6)

Graph 6: Deaths due to bomb attacks in Karachi

Furthermore, during April, two CIA operated drone strikes were reported in different areas of North Waziristan Agency (FATA), leaving 13 suspected militants dead. But in the month of May, only one Drone attack was reported with the causality of 7 militants in North Waziristan. Meanwhile, the militants continued with their sabotage campaign to demolish state infrastructure, and blew up 3 girls– schools and election offices in K.P.

Moreover, the sporadic waves of sectarian violence de-escalated during this month. Six people lost their lives in Karachi and Hangu, as a result of sectarian killings.

Meanwhile, data relating to the nature of violence suggests that almost 56 percent of the total loss of lives was the direct outcome of religio-terrorism. The epicenter of faith-based violence continues to be FATA and KP. Ethno-political violence involving political parties and ethnic races, While both nationalist-separatist violence in Balochistan, criminal activities in Punjab and sectarian violence across Pakistan accounted for almost 13 percent of the total fatalities.

A precise look into the trends and terrain of violence across the country underscore that the law and order situation across Pakistan is not satisfactory. Things are going to beyond state control.

As the election was in May, and whole country suffered astringent effect of terrorism .Our territory is much idealized because its geo strategic position and terrorist trying to demolish our country infrastructure by their lethal activities. Security issue is a big question, unrest in the country especially in FATA and K.P can cause severe consequences in people like frustration and lake of trust on state, and these things can force people to go for Asylum. So there is a strong need to protect the country stability by hook and crook. In this regard negotiation with Taliban can be fruitful.

Sources

1. The News
2. Dawn
3. The Express Tribune
4. Pakistan Today
5. Daily Times
6. The Frontier Post
7. Jang (Urdu)
8. Daily Mashriq (Urdu)
9. Aaj (Urdu)
10. The Nation