The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) remained the most targeted political party in the country with 18 of its workers falling prey to targeted killing, followed by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) with 10 victims, as a total of 216 incidents of political violence occurred across the country during the March – May 2011 quarter.
The violence in these three months affected 1,740 people, of which 595 people were killed, 1,094 were injured and 51 were kidnapped. On average, seven people were killed, 12 were injured and one was reportedly kidnapped every day during this period. In this quarter, 222 people were killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 160 in Sindh, 92 in Balochistan, 80 in Punjab, 40 in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and one in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).
According to a Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) report, of the total 1,740 victims across the country, 52 were directly affiliated with political parties in Pakistan. MQM-Haqiqi (MQM-H) was the third-most targeted party with eight victims, the Awami National Party (ANP) fourth with six victims, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) fifth with four victims, Sunni Tehreek (ST) sixth with two victims, and the Jiyay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM), Balochistan National Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) were the least targeted parties with one victim each.
Sindh experienced the highest number of incidents of political violence because of the increased incidents of targeted killings in Karachi.
During the reporting period around 50 percent of incidents of political violence were recorded in Sindh. Similar to findings in the previous quarter, Balochistan remained the second-most violence-prone region in terms of the number of incidents (66), followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (28), FATA (seven), Punjab (four) and Gilgit-Baltistan and the ICT (one each).
Targeted killing had been the most frequently reported category of violence during the previous quarter, and remained so with 56 recorded cases during March-May 2011.
Attacks on political party candidates/workers and attacks on state security forces followed, with 53 and 23 cases respectively. Apart from the victims targeted, 270 bystanders fell prey to collateral damage in attacks on state security forces and 24 in attacks on political party candidates/workers. However no bystanders were reportedly killed in incidents of targeted killing.
During the March-May 2011 reporting period, 186 out of the total 216 incidents of political violence involved human victims, 20 caused damage to property, whereas in eight incidents, both life and property were harmed. In two incidents it was unclear if life, property or both were harmed.
As many as 28 (13 percent) of the total 216 incidents of violence were perpetrated by militants during this period. One incident was carried out by tribal/village leaders while the perpetrators of the remaining 186 incidents (86 percent) could not be identified.