Aerial firing by supporters of various candidates in by-elections held in different parts of Pakistan on Saturday remained in the headlines for news channels around the country.

This video, aired by Pakistan’s Dunya News TV, is sufficient to understand the manner in which supporters of the winners usually respond over the victory of their respective candidates. This particular video is about aerial firing by supporters of a candidate of the Awami National Party (ANP), a political party which rules the country’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, jointly with the country’s main ruling party – Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

Interestingly the ANP supporters/workers resorted to aerial firing in anticipation of the victory of their particular candidate in the country’s city Mardan outside the party’s main office.

The other part of the video is about aerial firing by supporters/workers of another political party, the PML-N, which rules in the country’s Punjab province. This footage has been taken from Multan city which is a major city of the Punjab province and is also hometown of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani. According to the video, no one stopped the PML-N workers from aerial firing as there is a PML-N government in the province. It also says many PML-N parliamentarians were present during the incident but did not stop their party workers from aerial firing.

The last part of the video is about incidents of violence at different polling stations in which some workers of different political parties suffered injures.

It is unfortunate that over the years violence has become an integral part of elections in Pakistan. The increasing incidents of aerial firing also demand stern action by those at the helm to discourage people from indulging in such dangerous activities. There have been many incidents in past in which innocent people lost their lives owing to indiscriminate aerial firing.

According to this news report by Dawn newspaper, a man was killed and two others injured in aerial firing last year.