Slight increase in anti-state violence witnessed in June.

Byline: Imran Mukhtar

ISLAMABAD -- A slight increase in anti-state violence with extremist groups in their renewed efforts trying to revive urban militancy was witnessed during the month of June, revealed the report of a think tank yesterday.

The casualties went down with a slight increase in attacks in Pakistan during June 2020, says the report adding that the situation in erstwhile FATA indicates that the tribal region has become as the most distressing point with reference to the anti-state violence.

According to the statistics released by an Islamabad-based think tank Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS), slight increase in militant attacks was observed in June as compared to May this year but casualties in slightly higher number of militant attacks was less than that of May.

In June, as many as 19 militant attacks were recorded in which 24 people were killed and 38 others were injured. May 2020 had witnessed 18 militant attacks in which 34 people were killed and 15 others were injured. Thus, there has been almost six percent increase in militant attacks in June when compared with May but the number of casualties has gone down by almost 29 percent but the number of those injured increased by almost 153 percent.

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As per the PICSS statistics for June, among those 24 people killed in June, 12 were security forces personnel, seven civilians and five were suspected militants. Among those 38 injured, 27 were civilians and 11 were security forces personnel.

The data shows that 67 percent of total militant attacks in April occurred in erstwhile FATA, 66 percent in May and now 47 percent of the total attacks in June occurred in the troubled region.

In June, the highest number of militant attacks were reported from erstwhile FATA region, now merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), where nine militant attacks were reported in which eight people including five security forces personnel, two civilians and one militant...