The raging wave of violence significantly surged across Pakistan during the current week. Ethno-political violence in the largest metropolis, Karachi, also increased marginally, wherein almost 43 persons (compared to 42 of last week) lost their lives. Meanwhile, the wave of bomb blasts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), armed clashes between militants and the security forces in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the recovery of mutilated dead bodies continued to pile up misery and toll upon the citizens of Pakistan. The data collected throughten newspapers, which CRSS uses as the source, indicates that as many as 123 persons died, as a result of 73 violent incidents across the country during the reported week (for detailssee data sheet).The violent incidents also left 80 people injured.

During the current week, civilians had to once again pay the major price of the conflict, as the civilian death toll accounted for 73 percent (4/5) of the total deaths. In total, 93 civilians decimated and another 56 injured as a result of violent clashes across Pakistan. The second highest number of fatalities was ofmilitants, wherein 25 militants got killed under different circumstances. Furthermore, like the preceding week, just one CIA operated drone strikewas reported in Hurmaz village of Mir Ali sub-division, North Waziristan Agency (FATA), during the course of the week, killing four persons and injuring three women. Also, continuing their sabotage campaign to demolish state infrastructure, militants blew up two power pylons, a gas pipeline of 24-inch diameter and two state-run schools in different areas of KP, FATA and Balochistan.

Moreover, five sectarian attacks left four persons, one Sunni and three Shia men, dead and another three injured in Karachi (Sindh), Quetta (Balochistan) and lower Kurram Agency (FATA). The number of deaths due to target killing dropped by one percent, (41 percent against last week 42 percent) during the current week. Overall, 63 percent of the total violent attacks wereoftarget killingin nature.The trend also underlines that the target killing insistently remains the weapon of choice for violent actors to inflict violence (seethe pie chart below).

Furthermore, data underlines that of the total 46 incidents of target killings, a staggering 46 percent took place in Karachi alone, leaving 33 people dead (61 percent of the total dead in target killings) and injuring six others. Death toll of the militants in the ongoing military operations in KP and FATA region dropped by 20 percent as militant casualties due to military operation accounted for 20 percent of the total loss of lives against last week 40 percent. Meanwhile, eight security personnel were killed and 11 others got injured during the week.

Also, 19 dead bodies were recovered from different areas of Sindh, KP, FATA and Balochistan. Ten dead bodies out of the total 19 were found in Karachi alone. In sum, the number of violent incidents increased substantially from last week 58 to 73 during this week, the casualties resultantly spiked from 101 to 123 during the current week, while the number of wounded increased from 31 to 80.

A peek into the weekly data and violent trends underlines that the insistent wave of violence, with slight variations, continues to undermine the state security. In recent months Karachi has emerged as the hub of urban violence, recording parity with the other trouble spots in Pakistan like FATA and Balochistan. Meanwhile, the persistent wave of violence also underlines the fact that the violent actors stubbornly remain clinging to the violent means of conflict, and look in no mood to return to the political settlement of disputes.

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