The overall level of violence spiked substantially across Pakistan during the current week. Meanwhile, the spate of ethno-political violence in the largest metropolis, Karachi, de-escalated during the week, wherein 44 persons (compared to 58 in 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 228 persons lost their lives as a result of 107 violent incidents across the country during the reported week (for detailssee data sheet).The violent incidents also left 255 people injured.

As in case of preceding weeks, civilians bore the major brunt of the ongoing spate of violence across Pakistan as they accounted foralmost 69 percent of the total death toll. Numerically, 158 civilians lost their lives and 243 others were wounded in violent clashes of various kinds across the country. The second highest number of fatalities was ofmilitants, wherein 55 militants got killed under different circumstances. Furthermore, no CIA operated drone strike was reported during the week in any part of the country. Meanwhile thesabotage campaign by the militants continued to demolish state infrastructure and undermine stability as militants blew up one state-run school and two CD shops in KP, 17 houses in FATA, three power pylons and six vehicles in Balochistan.

Meanwhile, 13 sectarian attacksleft 11 dead in Karachi, one in KP and 72 in Balochistan this week. Moreover, the loss of lives due to target killings decreased by nine percent, (24 percent of the total dead against last week 33 percent) during the current week. Overall, 43 percent of the total violent attacks wereoftarget killingin nature(seethe pie chart below).

Furthermore, data underlines that of the total 46 incidents of target killings; 70 percent took place in Karachi alone, decimating 36 persons (65 percent of the total dead in target killings). Meanwhile 55 militants were killed in different incidents across the country. On the whole, militant casualties were 24 percent of the total death toll. Also, 15 security personnel were killed and seven other injured during the week.

Moreover, 16 bullet-riddled dead bodies were recovered, of which one from FATA, five from Balochistan, two from KP and eight were from Karachi. In sum, the number of violent incidents increased from last week 83 to 107 during this week, the resultant death toll, also increased from 182 to 228 during the current week, while the number of wounded increased from 110 to 255. A peer into the trends and territory of violence suggests that the deadly wave of sectarian violence continues to engulf Pakistan and especially Quetta, wherein back to back attacks against Shia community of Hazara origin led to the decimation of almost 250 persons during last seven weeks. Likewise, the menace of sectarian killing is also leading to large scale killings of persons belonging to different sects in Karachi, the hub of multiple sorts of violence in recent 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