KARACHI: An interactive website that documents and visualises trends in sectarian violence in Pakistan from 2002 to 2013 has been launched by a group of activists and researchers.

According to a press release issued here on Sunday, the website, Tashaddud.org, plots the historical data of sectarian killings on an interactive map which can be filtered by city and by year. It also represents the violence on timelines and through a qualitative highlighting of human interest stories.

The project came into being at a “hackathon” held in September at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US.

Its liaison in Pakistan is Shayan Rajani, who said: “There is a growing consensus today that sectarian violence is a major issue in Pakistan, yet we are strangely without a clear understanding of the actual depth, scale and history of this violence.

“Major instances of violence are covered in the media and then lost sight of as other incidents grab our attention.”

Tashaddud.org is aimed at journalists, activists and members of the public who are engaged with the issue of sectarian violence.

The team members of the project are Sarah Hank, Ali Jafri, Seher Haider, Mr Rajani, Haider Raza, Shahana Rajani, Fahad Desmukh and Rubab Karrar.