Revision as of 21:28, 17 September 2016

World ranking

2013: India 6th worst terror-hit country

Kounteya Sinha

The Times of India

Attacks Increased By 70% From 2012 To 2013, Toll Up From 238 To 404: India was the sixth worst-affected country by terrorism in 2013 -the other five being war zones at present. This came out in the Global Terrorism Index 2014 report which also said that the number of deaths from terrorism increased by 61% between 2012 and 2013.

There were nearly 10,000 terrorist attacks in 2013, a 44% increase from the previous year. But India witnessed a much higher increase of terrorist attacks during the same period -while terrorism increased by 70% in India from 2012 to 2013, the number of deaths increased from 238 to 404.

The report said that in India there remains significant terrorist activity including on the border between India and Pakistan. As many as 43 different terrorist groups were found to be operational in India and were categorized into three groups: Islamists, separatists and communists. They were found to have planned and carried out attacks.

Over 80% of the deaths from terrorist incidents in 2013 were recorded in just five countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria. On a scale of one (low est impact of terrorism) to 10 (highest risk of terrorism) -Iraq which has emerged as the world's worst-affected country with terrorism is the only entry with a score of 10. India had a score of 7.86.

The largest year-on-year increase in deaths from terrorism was recorded between 2012 and 2013 increasing from 11,133 to 17,958. As many as 87 countries experienced a terrorist incident in 2013, slightly up from 81 in 2012. The number of countries experiencing over 50 deaths in one year hit an alltime high in 2013 at 24, five greater than the previous high of 19 countries in 2008.

About India, the Index said, “The number of attacks increased with 55 more attacks in 2013 than 2012. But the majority of terrorist attacks in India have low casualties. In 2013 around 70% of attacks were non-lethal.

“Communist terrorist groups are by far the most frequent perpetrators and the main cause of deaths in India. Three Maoist communist groups claimed responsibility for 192 deaths in 2013, which was nearly half of all deaths from terrorism in India.

“Police are overwhelmingly the biggest targets of Maoists, accounting for half of all deaths and injuries. This is mainly through armed assaults, which killed 85, and bombings and explosions, which killed 43,“ the report said.

The dispute with Pakistan over Jammu & Kashmir is the source of Islamic terrorism in India, according to the report. In 2013 three Islamist groups were responsible for around 15% of deaths in India. This includes Hizbul Mujahideen which was the only group in India to use suicide tactics in 2013.

“Islamist groups in India commonly use armed assaults targeting the police or bombings targeting private citizens. The majority of attacks occur in Hyderabad and Jammu & Kashmir,“ the report said.

Globally, four terrorist groups -al-Qaida, Boko Haram, ISIS and the Taliban were responsible for 66% of all deaths from terrorist attacks in 2013 in which the perpetrator was known.

2015: CPI (Maoist) world’s fourth deadliest terror outfit

India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the world: terrorism in 2015.

Neeraj Chauhan, Maoists fourth deadliest terror outfit after Taliban, IS, Boko Haram: Report, Sep 16 2016 : The Times of India (Delhi)

The world witnessed 11,774 terror attacks in 2015, in which 28,328 people were killed and 35,320 injured. India was the fourth worst-affected country after Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, with 43% of 791 attacks in the country carried out by Naxalites. A total of 289 Indians died in terror strikes.

Data collected by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism cont racted with the US state department revealed that Taliban, Islamic State and Boko Haram were the three deadliest terror groups globally. They were followed by CPI (Maoist), a banned outfit. The CPI(Maoist) was responsible for 343 terror attacks in 2015, killing 176 people. Taliban were involved in 1,093 strikes in which 4,512 people lost their lives, IS launched 931 attacks which claimed the lives of 6,050 people and Boko Haram was involved in 491 attacks killing 5,450 people. Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which rounded off the top five in the list, was involved in 238 strikes, killing 287.

Over half the terror at tacks in India took place in four states -Chhattisgarh (21%), Manipur (12%), J&K (11%) and Jharkhand (10%).Chhattisgarh, which has been hit hard by Left-wing extremism, reported a doubling of terror attacks in 2015 -from 76 in 2014 to 167. The report said there was great diversity in the perpetratorsterrorist groups involved in attacks in the country , with 45 outfits ac tive across the country . The Naxals alone accounted for 43% of terrorist attacks in India last year. The report said the number of people kid nappedtaken hostage by terrorists and insurgent groups in India almost tripled in 2015, increasing to 862 from 305 in 2014. Of this, Naxals alone kid nappedtook hostage 707 persons last year compared with 163 in 2014. In 2014, there were no attacks in which 50 or more people were kidnapped or taken hostage while in 2015, there were seven such attacks, all of them attributed to Maoists.

Home ministry data also said that between 2010 and 2015, 2,162 civilians and 802 security personnel were killed by Naxals. Most of the dead were `tribals', often branded as police informers.

The report said that while India ranked high among countries witnessing terror attacks, the lethality of these attacks were relatively low.The number of perpetrators terrorists killed in attacks in India doubled in 2015, accounting for 20% of all deaths compared with 7% in 2014. In all, 6,924 terrorists (24%) were killed in the attacks perpetrated by them worldwide. The use of bombsexplosions as tactic for attacks was less prevalent in India than worldwide.