The overall level of violence increased substantially across Pakistan during the current week. Meanwhile, the spate of ethno-political violence in the largest metropolis, Karachi, continued unabated during the week, wherein 33 persons (compared to 29 in the last week) were killed. Also, the wave of bomb blasts across the country, spree of target killings and the recovery of mutilated dead bodies continued to mount death toll during the week. The data collected through10 newspapers that CRSS uses as the source, indicates that as many as 251 persons were dead as a result of 50 violent incidents across the country during the reported week (for detailssee data sheet).The violent incidents also left 457 people injured.

As in case of preceding weeks, civilians were the major victim of the ongoing spate of violence across Pakistan during the current week. Civilians accounted foralmost 80 percent of the total death toll across Pakistan. Numerically, 203 civilians lost their lives and 323 others were wounded in violent clashes of various kinds across the country. The second highest number of fatalities was ofsecurity forces, wherein 35 security personnel got killed under different circumstances. Furthermore, one CIA operated drone strike was also reported during the week, killing six suspected militants in North Waziristan Agency (FATA). Meanwhile thesabotage campaign by the militants continued to demolish state infrastructure and undermine stability as militants attacked eight NATO containers and blew up a state department in Balochistan, a government school in FATA, blew up two check posts in KP and Balochistan.

Meanwhile, sectarian attacksleft 128 persons dead as a result of three bomb blasts in Quetta and one bomb blast in KP. Most of the dead were from the Shia sect. Moreover, the loss of lives due to target killings decreased by six percent, (41 percent of the total dead against last week 47 percent) during the current week. Overall, 41 percent of the total violent attacks wereoftarget killingin nature(seethe pie chart below).

Furthermore, data underlines that of the total 23 incidents of target killings; 13 percent took place in Karachi alone, decimating 31 persons (63 percent of the total dead in target killings). Meanwhile 13 militants were killed in different incidents across the country. On the whole, militant casualties were five percent of the total death toll. Also, 35 security personnel were killed and 37 other injured during the week.

Moreover, nineteen bullet-riddled dead bodies were recovered of which nine from FATA, three from KP and seven from Karachi. In sum, the number of violent incidents decreased from last week 70 to 50 during this week, but the resultant death toll surged from 153 to 251 during the current week, while the number of wounded significantly increased from 83 to 457.

A peer into the trends and territory of violence suggests that the deadly spate of ethno-political and sectarian violence continues to plague the security landscape of Pakistan. During the week three sectarian attacks against the Hazara community of Quetta resulted in the loss of more than 100 innocent lives and invited world condemnation of Pakistani government. This time the sectarian attacks in Quetta also brought down the provincial government and federal government announced governor rule in the province for two months and security matters of the province were handed over to the Frontier Corps.

Sources

1. The News
2. Dawn
3. The Express Tribune
4. Pakistan Today
5. Daily Times
6. The Frontier Post
7. Jang (Urdu)
8. Daily Mashriq (Urdu)
9. Aaj (Urdu)
10. The Nation