Story in numbers: India 7th most terrorism-affected country, says report

India was ranked seventh in the list of countries most impacted by terrorism in 2015, according to the Global Terrorism Index 2016, released by the Institute for Economics & Peace, a think tank based in Sydney, Australia.

India is one of the six Asian countries ranked in the top 10 nations most impacted by terrorism. The Heart of Asia conference adopted the Amritsar declaration on December 4, which recognises “terrorism, violent extremism, radicalisation, separatism, and sectarianism and linkages among them” as the gravest challenges facing the region. The declaration voiced particular concern about the “high level of violence” by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its affiliates, the Haqqani Network, al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan – all based in South Asia.

India recorded 289 terrorism-related deaths in 2015, a 45 per cent decline over 2014. However, the number of Indian Army and paramilitary soldiers killed this year is at an eight-year high. As many as 797 terrorist attacks were recorded in India in 2015, up four per cent since 2014. While the 2015 attacks were the highest since 2000, around 80 per cent were non-lethal. Overall, 49 different terrorist groups were engaged in attacks but 31 of these failed to kill anyone. 

India experienced seven per cent of all terrorist attacks around the world, the fourth highest after Iraq (20 per cent), Afghanistan (14 per cent) and Pakistan (eight per cent). The rank of a country is calculated based on weightage assigned to the total number of terrorist incidents, fatalities, injuries and property damage sustained in the year in question. The index also takes into consideration the attacks that took place in the four previous years.
 

Source: IndiaSpend