NEW YORK: Rights group Amnesty International has slammed the spate
of targeted killings in Pakistan and ordered the Pakistani authorities
to end these and bring the perpetrators to justice.
The Human
Rights Commission of Pakistan said it had documented the violent deaths
of more than 1,100 people in Karachi in the first half of 2011, Amnesty
noted.
Some 490 of these were targeted killings on political, ethnic or sectarian grounds.
"The
alarming rise in targeted killings and general insecurity in Pakistan
over the past two years reflects a grave law and order crisis in the
country," said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific director.
"Even
when investigations have been opened in a few high-profile cases, they
have either been inadequate or have failed to address the systemic
problems leading to impunity."
The figures do not include the
scores of people killed in the first week of July, one of the most
violent periods in Karachi this year, Amnesty noted.
Security
forces, political groups and non-state armed groups have been blamed
for targeted killings, which have been on the rise in recent years. Online
