The overall level of violence escalated significantly across Pakistan during the current week. Meanwhile, the spate of ethno-political violence in the economic hub, Karachi, surged during the week, wherein 96 persons (compared to 51 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 169 persons lost their lives as a result of 84 violent incidents across the country during the reported week (for detailssee data sheet).The incidents also left 188 people injured.

As in case of preceding weeks, civilians were the major target of the ongoing spate of violence across Pakistan during the current week, wherein civilians accounted foralmost 70 percent of the total death toll during the course of week. Numerically, 119 civilians lost their lives and 164 others injured in violent clashes of various kinds across the country. The second highest number of fatalities was ofmilitants, wherein 41 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 continued as militants blew up five schools in KP, two CD shops, in FATA and torched 12 Vehicles in Sindh.

Meanwhile, 5 sectarian attacksleft 54 dead in Karachi and one dead in KP this week. Moreover, the loss of lives due to target killings decreased by 15 percent, (33 percent of the total dead against last week 48 percent) during the current week. Overall, 55 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; 74 percent took place in Karachi alone, decimating 41 persons (73 percent of the total dead in target killings). Meanwhile 41 militants were killed in different incidents across the country. On the whole, militant casualties were 24 percent of the total death toll. Also, nine security personnel were killed and 12 other injured during the week.

Moreover, 14 bullet-riddled dead bodies were recovered across the country, of which six from Balochistan, one from KP, and seven from Karachi. In sum, the number of violent incidents almost remained the same as 85 incidents were reported last week and 84 during this week, the resultant death toll, increased from 138 to 169 during the current week, and the number of wounded significantly increased from 97 to 188. A peer into the trends and territory of violence suggests that the deadly wave of ethno-political and sectarian violence, going on in Karachi and Quetta, has effectively taken over the once hub of bloodbath i.e. FATA and KP in recent months. Moreover, the violent activities like sect based killings and other ethno-political killings surged in the last week. Over all law and order situation worsened in Karachi as well as in other parts of country. The number of incidents remained the same as last week but a bomb attack in a Shia dominated locality increased the death toll in Karachi. This week also witnessed attack on polio center in FATA.

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