Pak: Nearly 3,000 killed in Karachi violence in 2014

Close to 3,000 people, including women and children, were killed last year in Karachi as violence continued to plague Pakistan's biggest city, a rights body said today.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said that 2,909 people including some 142 law enforcement personnel from police and paramilitary rangers were killed in 2014.
"The law enforcement agencies also killed some 594 suspected criminals and militants during January-December this year," an HRCP report said.
The report also cited that around 134 political activists of different political parties were killed in the city in different incidents of targeted killings.
"There were also 340 bodies found in different areas of the city in the year," the report said.

Targeted killings, sectarian violence and terrorist attacks continued throughout the year in Karachi, Pakistan's financial hub and biggest revenue generating region which has been blighted by political and ethnic unrest for years.

The rising killings led to the government launching a cleanup operation in the city in October, 2013 after the Supreme Court started suo moto hearings on the law and order situation in Karachi.
The HRCP report says that as many as 120 people were killed in sectarian violence and 89 were targeted by banned outfits while another 28 lost their lives in bomb blasts.
The report also says that those killed include 154 women and 78 children in different incidents of murders, targeted killings, kidnappings, bomb blasts or on sectarian grounds.

Six women were also victims of honour killings in the city as the highest number of people killed occurred in March in 2014 when 281 persons lost their lives.