LONDON: The United Kingdom Home Office has declared Pakistan as a countrywhere the state of security has significantly improved in 2018 as comparedto previous years.
The report has been based on the Home Office’s own assessment and theinformation gathered from media and various country reports.
The UK Home Office report on Pakistan’s situation praised the determinationof security forces, especially Pakistan Army, saying that the report hasstated that the military-led operations in Pakistan were successful incurbing the militant activity.
The report noted that although displacement continued in the tribal areasin 2017 and 2018, adding that over 83,000 IDP’s return to their areas inthe first 9 months of 2018 because of improvements in the securitysituation.
According to the report, between 2014 and 2017, the total number ofviolence-related fatalities declined by over 73%, from 7,655 fatalities in2014 to 2,057 in 2017 and the number of fatalities in the first 3 quartersof 2018 (930) compared to the same period in 2017 (1,585) decreased by 41%.
The report says that total 66 militant and affiliate supporterorganizations were banned from 2001 to 2018.
Read Top Stories
These banned organizations include Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) Sipah-i-MuhammadPakistan (SMP) Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) Laskar-e-T ayyiba (LeT) Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) Tehrik-e-Jaffria Pakistan (TJP)Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammad (TNSM) Tehreek-e-lslami Al-Qa’idaMillat-e-lslamia Pakistan and dozens of other groups.
According to the report, the western provinces bordering Afghanistan,Balochistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas suffer from most ofthe militant and sectarian violence while Sindh and Punjab experiencing theleast.
The report said that the “major source for a decline in violence inPakistan has been the improving situation in Karachi”. Karachi’s securitysituation has improved dramatically since 2014.
