As many as 559 persons were killed while 718 injured across the country in 379 incidents of extremism over the past 15 months (between October 2011 and December last year), showing an increase of 67 percent over the 181 casualties recorded in the previous year, said a repot released here on Wednesday.
The report titled 'Extremism Watch; Mapping Conflict Trends in Pakistan 2011-2012, released by Jinnah Institute here, stated that majority of incidents recorded by the Extremism Watch project during the said period were perpetrated by violent organisations, but there were also cases of citizens targeting others. Caretaker Minister for Law and Justice Ahmer Bilal Soofi was chief guest on the occasion while the panellists included Director Jinnah Institute Raza Rumi, Human Rights Activist Marvi Sarmad, senior journalist and Security analyst Imtiaz Gul, anchorperson Moeed Pirzada and religious scholar Amin Shahidi.
The data, presented in the report, also shows incidents distributed across the country, from the remotest regions to the main population centers. The report maps incidents of religious extremism over the last 15 months and identifies violent and non-violent attacks at Sufi shrines, against Hazaras and other religious minorities. The caretaker law minister said that the non-state actors have waged a war against the state of Pakistan, which needs to be addressed. He referred to the ongoing terrorism in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, saying that non-state actors, who considered democracy un-Islamic, had declared a war against Pakistan.
"The insurgency in the province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is a war waged against the state of Pakistan. The issue is not regime specific, but state specific and must be addressed as such", he said, adding that Muslim scholars must incorporate contemporary debates in their teaching curricula.
He said that non-state actors, by waging the war against Pakistan, are violating Article 5 and Article 256 (of the Constitution) and the government has called (in) army in support of the civilian security forces to enforce the Constitution". Highlighting the salient features of the report, Raza Rumi said that extremism was a long-term trend due to mass indoctrination via textbooks, sermons and state policy. He said that the issue of terrorism should not be confused with extremism though the two are often linked.
He explained that the report recorded 379 incidents of extremism from October 2011 to December 2012, a 67 per cent rise over the 181 recorded in the previous year. The number of casualties, went down with 559 killed and 718 injured across Pakistan, compared with 534 killed and 1, 391 injured in the previous year.
According to the report, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa was the hardest-hit province in the last 15 months with 143 incidents of extremism - 37 percent of the total incidents recorder in Pakistan. The highest number of deaths and injuries, however, were seen in Balochistan, where a wave of violent sectarian attacks against the Shia community killed 190 people. Sectarian violence was also responsible for the highest death toll across the country, with 525 people killed in 153 attacks, the report states. The incidents were reported from all regions of Pakistan except Azad Jammu and Kashmir. This is an alarming rise compared with 44 such incidents in the previous monitoring period.
The second highest number of incident recorded were attacks against schools. Most of the 136 attacks were in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and FATA, where militants have been targeting educational institutions, especially girls' schools for some years. This number is a significant increase from the September 2010 to September 2011 period, when 62 such incidents were reported, the report adds.
According to the data, 35 incidents of interfaith extremism occurred during the period majority of the incidents were reported in Punjab and Sindh provinces (13 and 15 respectively). Whereas, the reports also highlights 19 cases of blasphemy in which 15 Muslims, five Christians (including a women and two minors) and one Ahmadi were accused of desecrating the Holy Quran or the Prophet (PBUH). Nine lives were lost in the incidents, it adds.
Marvi Sirmed, highlighting the violence and discrimination against Pakistan's Hindu communit, said that there is no limit to how badly Hindu low caste women are being treated in Sindh. She said that they (Hindus) do not have family laws protecting them and it is impossible to prove whether a marriage or divorce has taken place, due to the State's policy of legal neglect". She also explained that sexual violence against women is rampant in the province and there is no recourse to justice, citing several examples of violence against Bheel, Meghwar and Kohli Hindus.
Security analyst Imtiaz Gul was of the opinion that most political parties skirt around the issue of militancy and that extremism is a manifestation of systemic failures that include non-implementation of the constitution and violation of the law by state institutions.
He also elaborated that extremism is not a short-term phenomenon contained within a specific geography, adding that if we don't stand up to this challenge Pakistan will remain isolated politically and socially. Moeed Peerzada gave a historical overview of extremism in Pakistan, pointing out moments in the 1970s when the Ahmadi community was marginalised via a constitutional amendment.
He emphasised that a secular polity could not be established even after that in Pakistan. Dr Peerzada cited examples from post-World War II Germany where curricula reform and retraining of bureaucracy was undertaken to curb the spread of militancy, violence and extremism.
Amin Shahidi of Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen said that there was an urgent need for sectarian harmony in the country and the violence against Shia Muslims needed to be checked. He said that the civil and military institutions of the country should wake up to the dire situation and protect all Pakistani citizens irrespective of their faith, sect and creed.