India one of the most impacted countries from terror, D-Company still present in Mumbai, says report
2 min read 16 Mar 2023, 07:50 PM ISTD-Company turned to terror and controls Mumbai's counterfeit market, profiting from drugs, arms, prostitution, extortion and precious metals trafficking.
PremiumDawood Ibrahim and his D-company still control several criminal activities in Mumbai, including trafficking drugs, arms, counterfeiting etc., 10th edition of the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) cited. The report also cited that the criminal outfit has strong links with global terrorist groups, including al-Qaida.
How big a threat is the D-company for India?
The report highlights the D-Company's transformation to a terror outfit coincides with its entry into the counterfeit trade. The criminal outfit led by fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim now controls the bulk of the black market for counterfeit cultural products in Mumbai. It also pointed out that D-Company draws its profit from trafficking drugs, arms, and precious metals, prostitution, counterfeiting, and extortion.
“In the early 1990s, D-Company decided to infiltrate the Indian film industry," said the report, which summarises the key global trends and patterns in terrorism over the last decade.
Then it quickly developed links with al-Qaida and other terrorist groups in Kashmir. “Its involvement in the 1993 Mumbai attacks, which killed 257 people, is widely acknowledged," said the report that used data including from TerrorismTracker, which provides event records on terrorist attacks since January 2007.
It is pertinent to mention here, Dawood Ibrahim is currently based out of Pakistan. Several reports have cited that he, currently, lives in Karachi with his family.
Which are the deadliest terror group in India?
The report listed India among the 25 worst terror-hit countries, with a high impact of terrorism and ranked 13th. However, it also notes that 56 of the 120 nations surveyed had no respondents selecting war and terror as the biggest threat to their daily safety.
India has a number of low-level conflicts in some border areas, but the vast majority of the country's population lives outside of these regions. The GTI score of India was 7.175, compared to 8.822 of Afghanistan, which topped the index.
The report also suggests that respondents in India may be desensitized to violence in their country, particularly younger respondents who have grown up alongside constant turbulence. On average, 12% of South Asian respondents rated war and terrorism as the top concern to their daily safety, the highest of all regions. The report also lists the Communist Party of India (Maoist) as the 12th deadliest terror group in 2022 ahead of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Afghanistan remained the country most impacted by terrorism for the fourth consecutive year, despite attacks and deaths falling by 75% and 58%, respectively. Pakistan remained among the 10 countries most affected by terrorism in 2022, with deaths rising significantly to 643, a 120% increase from the previous year.
