Terror is rising in India as the country slipped to 7th rank in 2018 from 8th rank in the previous year, according to the 2018 Global Terrorism Index of the prestigious Institute for Economics & Peace.
Iraq figures at the top in the list followed by Afghanistan, Nigeria, Syria, Pakistan and Somalia which stands at the sixth position, all in the “very high” category in terms of impact. Yemen, Egypt and Phillippines are the three other nations in the world’s top terror hit countries of the world which are in the “high” impact category.
Total deaths in India due to terrorism since 2001 have been 8,123 and the Communist Party of India (Maoist) remains the most potent terror group responsible for most number of deaths followed by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. While United Nations has banned the JeM, the global body’s efforts to ban the Pakistani outfit’s chief Maulana Masood Azhar have been repeatedly blocked by China.
“China’s move is more curious in view of the fact that its operatives are increasingly targeting Chinese assets in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The JeM leadership feels China is aiding Pakistan in anti-Islamic activities by pressurizing it to take action against jehadis in CPEC. Jehad is considered holy and Islamic by the terror group,” counter-terrorism expert Dr Rituraj Mate told The Pioneer.
Police and military personnel figure at the top in terms of attacks by target category followed by private citizens and property, Government and business.
This implies that the terror groups have devised strategies to hit the uniformed personnel even as the police and military are yet to devise effective counter strategies to deal with the terrorists.
“The deadliest group in India is the country’s CPI (Maoist). Maoists were responsible for 205 deaths and 190 terror incidentsin India, or 53 per cent of the deaths in 2017. The Maoists…directly oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration and the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Maoist assailants frequently stage attacks against the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and other armed forces throughout the country’s northern and central territories,” says the report.
The north Indian state of Jammu and and Kashmir had the most deaths in 2017, with 102 deaths committed by five different terror groups, most notably LeT, JeM and Hizbul Mujahideen.
The CPI (Maoist) also figures at the 8th position in the Index of top 10 perpetrators organisations that staged 1416 major attacks between 1970 to 2011 killing 1889 people.
Other groups in the category include Irish Republican Army, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, Taliban and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eeelam (LTTE) among others.