The deadly wave of violence further deescalated across Pakistan during the current week. Meanwhile, the spate of ethno-political violence in the economic hub, Karachi, significantly decreased during the week, wherein 23 persons (29 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 71 persons lost their lives as a result of 57 violent incidents across the country during the reported week (for detailssee data sheet).The violent incidents also left 90 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, 37 civilians were killed and 41 others injured in violent clashes of various kinds across the country. The week the number of fatalities ofsecurity forces and militants remained the same that is 17. Furthermore, no CIA operated drone strike was carried out during the week. Meanwhile the16 sabotage campaigns were carried out by the militants to demolish state infrastructure and undermine stability. Militants blew up three power pylons five NATO container and a gas pipeline in Balochistan and two government schools, shop, NGO office, transformer, two cellular towers and a grid station in KP.

Surprisingly enough no sectarian attack was reported this week. Moreover, the loss of lives due to target killings decreased by 13 percent, (24 percent of the total dead against last week 37 percent) during the current week. Overall, 35 percent of the total violent attacks wereoftarget killingin nature(seethe pie chart below).

Furthermore, data underlines that of the total 20 incidents of target killings; 55 percent took place in Karachi alone, decimating 13 persons (76 percent of the total dead in target killings). Meanwhile 17 militants were killed in different incidents across the country. On the whole, militant casualties were 24 percent of the total death toll. Also, 17 security personnel were killed and 49 others were injured during the week.

Moreover, seven bullet-riddled dead bodies were recovered across the country, of which five from Sindh and one each from KP and FATA. In sum, the number of violent incidents decreased slightly from 66 reported during last week to 57 during this week. The resultant death toll, decreased significantly from 127 to 71 during the current week, and the number of wounded increased from 130 to 90. Security forces– effort to curtail the sectarian attacks proved successful as this week saw no sectarian attack. However, the sabotage activities surged up. On number of occasions security forces were attacked by militants. Overall decrease in number of violent incidents is a ray of hope for peaceful upcoming elations, if the trend continues for the next few months.

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