Pakistan has experienced a high level of violence, over the years. Despite the lack of information on this subject in Pakistan, this study describes the documented patterns of violence in Pakistani society, including its causes, offenders, and sociocultural and political frameworks. Researchers studying indigenous social problems are hindered from developing a thorough sociological perspective on the violence that exists in Pakistani society in this area because of the stark disparity between empirical and theoretical knowledge between the “North and South” of the intellectual global world. The goals of this search were to determine the extent of violence in Pakistani society, its causes, and preventative and control techniques based on a review of the available literature.
“On 3rd December 2021, a Siri Lankan factory manager was killed by a mob accusing him of blasphemy. Where the murderers were proudly saying that they have sent him to hell fire.” “According to investigators, after their employers found them taking fruit, a 10-year-old domestic servant was assaulted and tortured to death and his younger brother suffered serious injuries”. “In 2012, Telenor advertised that its plans offered free calls inside Pakistan for the duration of the day for just Rs. 9 (tax included). This information was untrue.” a social media post from a young woman whose outfit was taken away at a high-end retailer during a sale until she yelled that she was wearing it and it was not a sale item. (Tanzeel, 2019).” “A religious group called TLYR carried out violent strikes there in late 2018 that caused three days of chaos throughout the entire nation. Facebook and WhatsApp were mostly used to coordinate and plan the protests, which helped to immediately arouse people’s emotions (Muhammad, 2020).” There are much more examples of violence caused in Pakistani society, which the society sometimes even don’t notice. Violence should be defined in a way that can completely take into consideration the exclusion of actions like accidents and self-defense.
Since 1947, ethnic and sectarian violence has frequently occurred in Pakistan. This violence has taken the form of one-sided attacks by the government and Islamic extremists against religious and ethnic minorities (Ministry of Finance, 2014-15). In Pakistan, there is a large urban crime and violence problem. In Karachi, Pakistan’s most populated metropolis with 9.8 million residents, the police noted more than 12,000 homicide instances between 2008 and 2016. (1998 census). In the years prior lethal violence in the city steadily increased in 2012. This growth was partly caused due to rapid and unplanned urbanization and tensions on the basis of ethnicity (Geneva declaration secretariat, 2015). Violence cannot be occurred only by physical force, but it can be in other ways also as psychological violence, corporate violence, violence on social media, financial violence, cultural violence, emotional violence, etc. That violence can be on a collective as well as individual levels.
Collective violence can be religious, political, social media etc. Whereas individual violence can include domestic violence, emotional violence, etc. School violence may be committed by students, teachers, or other members of the school staff; however, violence by fellow students is the most common. Fellow students make fun of or do bullying of other students which affects them or triggers them mentally and emotionally. “School violence can be anything that involves a real or implied threat; it can be verbal, sexual, or physical, and perpetrated with or without weapons. There often isn’t a simple, straightforward reason why someone engages in school violence.
A child may have been bullied or rejected by a peer, may be under a lot of academic pressure, or maybe enacting something they’ve seen at home, in their neighborhood, on television, or in a video game. Sometimes violence may occur when someone is facing problems and become aggressive toward students. When students face difficulties like they were beaten or punished, they got mentally unbalanced. Students who were disabled or poor face a lot of difficulties because teachers were frustrated with them or sometimes teachers don’t like those students and they behave with them like evil. Students faces swear type of injuries during physical violence and these injuries sometimes lead to death.
Like In Lahore, a seven years boy was beaten by a teacher with an iron rod and he died after three days. The state has to stop all types of violence by applying the rules and restrictions that if anyone had beaten students then the state takes strict actions against him/her. (Violence in Schools, 2018). Islam does not allow people to treat animals with cruelty because it is forbidden. The rules of slaughtering animals were mentioned like we do not have to mistreat them or give them pain. If we see in our country, political leaders were known to hold political rallies with caged or chained lions. Rich people buy expensive cats, dogs, and pets etc., and treat them badly. Not only rich people but poor people also take animals like donkeys, horses, mules, etc. for work and they overburdened and overworked them. When animals stop doing their work then they were badly beaten by their owners.
Recent attempts at humanitarian dog population management and mass vaccination in Karachi are scattered. Instead, following the negligence of pet owners and guard dog attacks on Karachi pedestrians, a recent uproar has caused even more aggression in dogs across the country. In some areas, city organizations have begun to ask city organizations to shoot stray dogs at a glance. The use of strychnine addiction was again legal to poison dogs. Appropriate laws related to animal welfare and slaughters are generally lacking and existing laws are not properly enforced. Pakistan’s Animal Cruelty Prevention Act (1890) aims to protect many animals, including draft animals. However, this law is outdated and does not reflect the general scientific, cultural, or commercial obligations of animal welfare.
It is time to renew this law to protect both livestock and wildlife, establish their care mechanisms, and establish their impact on those who ignore animals (Animal Cruelty in Pakistan, 2021). Domestic violence is violence committed by someone in the victim’s home. This includes spouses, ex-partners, close relatives, other relatives, and family friends. The term “domestic violence” is used when there is a close relationship between the perpetrator and the victim. Globally, the victims of domestic violence are predominantly women, who tend to experience more serious forms of violence. They also use violence in partnerships for self-defense more often than men. In some countries, domestic violence may be considered justified or justified by law, especially if there is real or suspicious unfaithfulness on the part of the woman. Domestic violence often occurs when the perpetrator believes that he or she has the right, or that it is acceptable, justified, or unlikely to be reported.
It can create a cycle of violence among children and other families who feel that such violence is acceptable. Many people do not recognize themselves as perpetrators or victims because they can view their experience as an out-of-control family conflict. Perceptions, definitions, and documentation of domestic violence vary widely from country to country. In addition, domestic violence is often associated with forced marriage and child marriage. During the Covid-19 pandemic, data and reports from frontline people show that “all kinds of violence against women and girls, especially domestic violence, have increased.”
From March 2020 to December 2020, when the reported incident was analyzed, the rate of violence during lockdown was 45% in Karachi province has increased. Against the backdrop of increasing domestic violence, the law will ensure that timely efforts are made to strengthen prevention and protection measures for survivors. The law allows a standard state-level definition of “children” that was not clear in the previous law, and this addition helps prevent children from getting married (Sardar, 2021). Sectarian violence or sectarian conflicts are a form of sectarian-inspired communal violence. Discrimination, hatred, or prejudice between different denominations of a particular ideology or between different religions within a country/community. Barrels make up the majority of Sunni denominations, and Deobandi makes up 15-25%. However, Barelvis was attacked and killed by Pakistani Deobandi groups such as TTP, SSP, and Lashkar-e-Tiba.
Terrorist attacks, vandalism, and the destruction of places considered sacred by members of the Barelvis movement were carried out by a group of Deobandi militants. These include attacks, destruction, and vandalism in Lahore’s Data Darbar, Abdullah Shahgaji’s tomb in Karachi, and Raman Baba’s tomb in Peshawar. The killings of several Barelvi leaders were also carried out by Deobandi terrorists. Barelvi clerics claim that there is a bias against them in various Pakistani establishments such as the DHA, who tend to appoint Deobandi Imams for mosques in their housing complexes rather than Barelvi ones.
Historical landmarks such as Badshahi Masjid also have Deobandi Imams, which is a fact that has been used as evidence by Barelvi clerics for bias against Barelvis in Pakistan. The Milade Mustafa Welfare Society has asserted that the Religious Affairs Department of DHA interferes with Human Resources to ensure that Deobandi Imams are selected for mosques in their housing complex. In April 2006, the entire leadership of two prominent Barelvi outfits, the Sunni Tehreek and Jamaat Ahle Sunnat were killed in a bomb attack in the Nishtar Park bombing, in Pakistan’s largest city and business hub Karachi. On 12 June 2009, Sarfraz Ahmed Naeemi, a prominent cleric of the Barelvi sect and outspoken critic of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan was killed in a suicide bombing. Between 2005 and 2010, hundreds of Barelvi sect members have been killed in more than 70 suicide attacks at different religious shrines (Lieven, Anatol 2017).
