BackGlobal terror up amid pandemic: US data
The data places India in fifth place after Afghanistan, Syria, DR Congo and Yemen on the number of terrorist attacks
PremiumNEW DELHI : Data compiled by the US state department shows that India faced more terrorist attacks in 2020 than the previous year, and 37% of these incidents were reported from Jammu and Kashmir.
Not just India, there was more brutality at the hands of terrorist outfits in 2020 worldwide, with overall 10,172 such attacks reported in 98 countries, 1,300 more attacks than in 2019.
The data, analysed by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, contracted with the US state department, places India in fifth place after Afghanistan, Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Yemen in terms of the number of terrorist attacks.
Overall, 679 terrorism-related incidents were reported in India last year, in which 567 people were killed (2% of the global total of fatalities in terrorist attacks). In 2019, 655 terror attacks were recorded in the country.
Even though India was in the top 10 countries for most terrorism incidents last year, it is not in the top 10 for fatalities. Afghanistan reported a maximum of 1,722 terrorist attacks, followed by Syria (1,322) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (999).
The US data reveals that the states in India that experienced the most terror incidents were Jammu and Kashmir with 257 incidents (37.8%), Chhattisgarh with 145 incidents (21.4%), and Jharkhand with 69 incidents (10.2%).
However, the Union home ministry’s data on terror attacks was inconsistent with the US state department as it claimed that 244 terror attacks took place in Jammu and Kashmir in 2020, as shared by the home ministry in the parliament on 23 March.
The Centre has maintained that terror incidents have come down in J&K post abrogation of Article 370 on 5 August 2019, and the security forces have dismantled major terror networks in the Valley.
The ministry didn’t respond to a query on the difference in the number of terror-related incidents.
According to the US data, among perpetrators in India, CPI-Maoist continued to be the fourth-most destructive group in the world in 2020, with 298 incidents and 202 fatalities. The Maoists were behind 44% of the total (679) terror attacks in the country, while Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizbul Mujahideen were responsible for 6% of all incidents. It says 29% of terror incidents were not attributable to any outfit in India.
Taliban (including the Haqqani Network) was responsible for the most terror incidents (1,325) and fatalities (7,417) in 2020, followed by ISIS-Core (which comprises the ISIS elements in Iraq and Syria), al-Shabaab, CPI-Maoists and ISIS-DR Congo—to round up top five groups, the US analysis states.
The US state department report further says that “Indian security agencies are effective in disrupting terrorist threats, although gaps remain in inter-agency intelligence and information sharing".
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