The ICM figures for Pakistan soldiers killed in 2022 is six times the number of Indian security personnel martyred during the same period Image Courtesy AFP
New Delhi: After the Soviet Union limped out of Afghanistan in 1989, Pakistan started to redirect the mujahideen groups fighting the erstwhile communist behemoth in the Afghan mountains into Jammu and Kashmir to take on the Indian Army.
These mujahideen groups – which Pakistan had trained and armed with copious amounts of funds from the US – have nowbecome a millstone around Pakistan’s collective neck.
According to a report by the Islamabad-based non-government group Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), a total of 282 security forces personnel were killed across Pakistan in 2022.
However, if one goes by the figures published by the Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management (ICM), the number of soldiers and policemen killed in internal insurgencies in Pakistan last year is even higher at 379. The ICM has reported that 47 personnel from the Indian security forces embraced martyrdom in 2022.
The ICM claims to gather its information entirely from open-source data such as newspapers and digital media. The CRSS however, does not disclose the source of its data.
The ICM figures for Pakistan soldiers killed in 2022 is six times the number of Indian security personnel martyred during the same period.
The political class and vast sections of the general public in Pakistan had indulged in wild celebrations when the Afghan Taliban marched into Kabul in August 2021 following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
However, the euphoria soon vanished when the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which claims to fight for the rights of the Pashtun people in Pakistan, carried over 250 attacks on the security forces over the next 12 months.
In recent months, the TTP has intensified its campaign against the Pakistan Army after unilaterally abrogating a ceasefire.
While the TTP mostly operates in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, there is unrest in Balochistan as well with Baloch freedom fighters carrying out regular attacks against the Pakistan Army and the paramilitary forces.
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