1,395 persons killed in 1842 terrorist attacks from January 2008 to March 2009

The National Assembly was informed on April 17 that there were 1,842 terrorist attacks from January 2008 to March 2009 that killed at least 1,395 people, Daily Times reported. Replying to two identical questions by Members of National Assembly Marvi Memon and Nighat Parveen, the Interior Ministry told the Lower House that Balochistan was the worst-hit by terrorism – with a total of 1,122 terrorist attacks that killed 436 people, followed by NWFP with 692 attacks that killed 732 people, Punjab with 12 attacks that killed 119 people, Sindh with nine attacks that killed 21 people and Islamabad with seven attacks that killed 87 people.
The ministry provided estimated losses to private properties, but said that losses to public properties, possibly amounted to billions of rupees, had not been calculated yet. The ministry estimated that losses in NWFP amounted to PKR 2,680 million, PKR 25 million in Balochistan and PKR 5 million in Sindh. The ministry also said the loss of property and vehicles in the terrorist attack on the embassy of Denmark amounted to PKR 12.121 million. The ministry told the House that in Balochistan, compensation cheques handed out to families of Police amounted to PKR 99.5 million, while civilian victims of terrorism had been compensated with PKR 40 million. The administration of Islamabad had paid PKR 27.95 million as compensation, Punjab Government PKR 102.92 million, while another PKR 4.45 million had been sanctioned for disbursement to remaining victims in the province, the House was told. The Sindh Government paid PKR 0.67 million to victims of bomb blasts and eight other cases of compensation were being processed. In NWFP, PKR 99.5 million has been paid as compensation to affected Policemen and PKR 40 million to civilians.
Replying to a supplementary question, Mujtaba Kharral said no inquiry report had been submitted to Parliament, but promised that the Government would soon table inquiry reports on all incidents. Replying to a question by Begum Nuzhat Sadiq, the Interior Ministry told the House that 6,007 illegal foreigners were imprisoned in Pakistan during 2008-09. Of these foreigners, 5,087 are in Balochistan, 678 in Sindh, 80 in NWFP and 162 in Punjab. The ministry said that 162 female foreigners with illegal documents had been arrested over the last three years – 143 in Sindh, 3 in NWFP, 10 in Balochistan and 6 in Punjab.