India ranked seventh in the list of countries most affected by terrorism in 2015, according to the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2016 released by the Institute for Economics & Peace, a Sydney-based think-tank.
The report gave India a GTI rank of seven and GTI score of 7.484. The GTI score for a country is based on weightage assigned to the total number of terrorism-related incidents, fatalities, injuries and property damage sustained in the year in question. The index also takes into consideration attacks that took place in the four previous years.
The country most affected by terrorism last year was Iraq, with 2,415 terrorist incidents, causing 6,960 deaths and 11,900 injuries, followed by Afghanistan, which suffered 1,715 terrorist incidents, which caused 5,312 deaths and 6,249 injuries. Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen were ranked behind these countries, in that order. The situation in Somalia, Egypt and Libya was worse than that in India, with Libya figuring on the 10th place in the ranking.
In India, 797 terrorist attacks were recorded in 2015, up 4 percent since 2014, the report said. India recorded 289 terrorism-related deaths in 2015, a 45 percent decline over 2014.
While the attacks in 2015 were the highest since 2000, 80 percent were non-lethal. Overall, 49 different terrorist groups were engaged in attacks but 31 of these failed to kill anyone.
"This suggests that groups are seeking to remind governments of their presence without provoking significant military reactions," the report said. "Terrorism in India is characterised by communist, Islamists and separatist groups. Communist terrorist groups are by far the most frequent perpetrators and the main cause of terrorism deaths in India. Two Maoist communist groups claimed responsibility for 176 deaths in 2015, which constitutes 61 percent of all deaths."
India experienced 7 percent of all terrorist attacks around the world, the fourth highest after Iraq (20 percent), Afghanistan (14 percent) and Pakistan (8 percent). India, in 2015, had fewer terror attacks (797) than only Iraq (2,415), Afghanistan (1,715) and Pakistan (1,008). India suffered twice as many attacks as Syria (384), according to IANS.
Some other highlights from the report:
• Economic loss from terrorism has been $635 billion over 16 years.
• OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries saw 650 percent rise in terror-related deaths.
• ISIS overtook its African affiliate Boko Haram as the world's deadliest terrorist group in 2015.
