India witnessed the most bomb blasts in the world in 2016: Report

Out of the total 406 incidents reported during this period in India, 337 were triggered using IEDs

India witnessed the maximum bombings in the world in 2016, even more than war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report.

There were 406 such incidents, which include IED and ordnance explosive blasts, in the country. Iraq came second with almost half the number at 221, the report by the National Bomb Data Centre (NBDC) said though it did not mention the casualties.

NBDC functions as the nodal post-blasts investigation department under country’s federal contingency force NSG. The report did sound a word of caution on the global data, saying the centre obtained these figures from “open source”.

Neighbouring Pakistan witnessed a total of 161 incidents during 2016 followed by Afghanistan where 132 bombings were recorded, 92 in Turkey, 71 in Thailand, 63 in South Africa, 56 in Syria, Egypt 42 and 29 in Bangladesh among others.

“This does not reflect the exact number and details of the incident,” the National Security Guard’s NBDC said in its annual compilation of such incidents called ‘Bombshell’.

Out of the total 406 incidents reported during this period in India, 337 were triggered using Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) while the rest 69 occurred using ordnance explosives like grenades or ammunition shells.

The report delved deeper and analysed that the maximum of IED blasts in a week in India, at 63, occurred on Thursdays, followed by 50 on Wednesdays and so on.

March proved to be most deadliest in India with a maximum of 42 incidents being recorded in this month in 2016 followed by 36 in April.

“The data... has been obtained from police records available from time to time. This does not reflect the exact number and details of the incident,” the report added .

The NBDC report, published last week, also reported that Jammu and Kashmir saw an over 121% rise in blast and IED related incidents after the killing of militant Burhan Wani in the Valley in July last year.

While 14 IED bombing incidents were reported in J&K in 2015, the numbers went up to 31 last year.

“Jammu and Kashmir saw an increase in blast incidents and casualties particularly after the death of Burhan Wani,” the report said.