The Hindu : Fewer terror attacks, yet little to cheer about

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 31, 2003

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National

Fewer terror attacks, yet little to cheer about

By Praveen Swami

NEW DELHI Dec. 30. Provisional data on terrorist violence shows that civilian fatalities in 2003 have fallen to the lowest levels in five years. This data sits uncomfortably with public perceptions on terrorism, which is emerging as a major issue for the 2004 general elections.

In-house data generated by the Intelligence Bureau, exclusively obtained by The Hindu, shows that 2,262 civilians have lost their lives in terrorist violence in 2003, compared with 2,537 in 2002, 2,898 in 2001, 3,095 in 2000 and 2,527 in 1999. The 2003 data is based on observed figures up to November 2003 and projections based on trends for December 2003.

The classified data studies civilian fatalities in three major theatres of conflict — Jammu and Kashmir, Maoist violence and the North-East. It does not, however, include fatalities in a welter of high-profile terrorist strikes such as the twin bombings in Mumbai earlier this year. A senior official at the Union Ministry of Home Affairs said that these incidents, though tragic, "had no major statistical significance given the high levels of terrorist violence directed at civilians in the major conflict zones."

All the three conflict theatres have seen a steady decline in violence in recent years. Jammu and Kashmir saw 1,558 civilians die in 3,491 incidents in 2001, which saw killings reach a peak because of the dislocation of the security grid during the 1999 Kargil war. In 2002, however, sustained intelligence work and the restoration of ground-level security operations to normal levels saw the number of incidents decline to 3,110 and the numbers of killings to 1,410. This year, if the projected figures for December prove accurate, there will have been 1,188 fatalities in 2,619 incidents.

A similar pattern is evident in the North-Eastern States. In 2000, after troops were moved west to compensate for the Kargil war-related commitments, a record 1,085 civilians died in 1,935 terrorist strikes. The following year, the number of strikes declined to 1,356 and the number of killings to 780. The year 2002 saw a further reduction, with 645 civilian deaths recorded in 1,280 incidents. This year, the number of fatalities ought to be 596, although the number of incidents rose to 1,411.

Maoist groups, who operate in a welter of States, including Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, buck the trend. Whereas 482 civilians died in Maoist violence in 2002, this year's projected toll is 488. The fatalities declined steadily from 1999 to 2002, with Maoist terrorism claiming 621 lives in 1999, 570 in 2000, 560 in 2001 and 482 in 2002. Interestingly, there was an increase in the number of incidents of Maoist terrorism, from 1,220 in 2001 to 1,454 in 2002 and up to a projected 1,689 this year.

All this points to an unnoticed paradox in internal security issues today: India's people do not seem to have been safer in recent years than they are today, and yet they feel more insecure than ever before. How does one explain this fracture between experienced reality and empirical reality?

One plausible explanation comes from Ajai Sahni, a New Delhi-based internal-security analyst. "I think two things have happened," he says. "At one stage, terrorism was located very clearly in one part of the country or the other. It existed in Punjab or Jammu and Kashmir or Andhra Pradesh. Today, terrorism has at one point or the other hit almost everywhere. It has become a truly all-India phenomenon. Second, the shadow of terrorism is cast even where there is no terrorism. There is this sense that if terrorists can hit the Pentagon or the World Trade Centre, they can hit anything, anytime."

Events this year bear out Mr. Sahni's proposition. The tragic twin bombings of Mumbai on August 25, 2003 brought home the organic connections between pan-India politics and terrorist activity. The bombings, which marked the culmination of a series of murderous terrorist attacks that began in August 2002, were carried out with the support of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) to avenge last year's communal pogrom in Gujarat.

Conversely, terrorist groups in Jammu and Kashmir continued to demonstrate their ability to strike outside the State. Investigations into last year's storming of the Akshardham temple in Ahmedabad established that the outrage was carried out using LeT operatives from Pakistan, with the aid of cadre drawn from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Central Bureau of Investigations agents, along with the Gujarat police, discovered that similar networks operated in Gujarat, where dozens of young people are believed to have received training from the LeT.

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