The raging wave of violence receded across Pakistan during the current week. Meanwhile, the spate of ethno-political violence in the economic hub, Karachi, significantly decreased during the week, wherein 29 persons (40 in the last week) were perished. 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 127 persons lost their lives as a result of 66 violent incidents across the country during the reported week (for detailssee data sheet).The violent incidents also left 130 people injured.

In contrary to the preceding weeks, militants were the major target of the ongoing spate of violence across Pakistan during the current week, wherein civilians accounted foralmost 61 percent of the total death toll during the course of week. Numerically, 78 civilians were killed and 87 others injured in violent clashes of various kinds across the country. The second highest number of fatalities was ofsecurity forces, wherein 27 lost their lives and 43 sustained injuries under different circumstances. Furthermore, no CIA operated drone strike was carried out during the week. Meanwhile thesabotage campaign by the militants to demolish state infrastructure and undermine stability continued as militants blew up two gas pipelines in Balochistan, two rail tracks and gas pipeline in Sindh, Basic Health Unit and filling station in FATA, and two schools in FATA and KP.

Meanwhile, only one sectarian attack in KP left one dead this week. Moreover, the loss of lives due to target killings increased spike substantially by 12 percent, (37 percent of the total dead against last week 25 percent) during the current week. Overall, 58 percent of the total violent attacks wereoftarget killingin nature(seethe pie chart below).

Furthermore, data underlines that of the total 38 incidents of target killings; 55 percent took place in Karachi alone, decimating 21 persons (43 percent of the total dead in target killings). Meanwhile 22 militants were killed in different incidents across the country. On the whole, militant casualties were 17 percent of the total death toll. Also, 27 security personnel were killed and 43 others were injured during the week.

Moreover, eight bullet-riddled dead bodies were recovered across the country, of which one from Balochistan. The recovery of dead bodies from Karachi remained the same as that of last week. In sum, the number of violent incidents decreased slightly from 68 reported during last week to 66 during this week. The resultant death toll, decreased from 182 to 127 during the current week, and the number of wounded increased from 107 to 130. The sabotage activities suggest that militants have enlarged their sphere of violence activities to all the provinces of Pakistan during the current week. Last week trend continued in case of recovery of dead bodies. Likewise the menace of target killings in Karachi is also leading factor in the increase of death toll.

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