Patterns in Terror Attacks in Urban and Semi-Urban India

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Terrorism and insurgencies in India broadly fall into the following types:
• those relating to the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir;
• those related to the separatist movements in North Eastern States;
• violence perpetrated by left wing extremist groups;
• terrorist attacks in urban and semi urban areas of India that are not obviously connected with the above three types.

By making a distinction between insurgencies and terrorist attacks this report addresses terrorist incidents in urban and semi urban areas of India. The Mumbai 1993 multiple bomb blast was the first incident of this kind. Since then several incidents have occurred in various parts of the country. This report describes the efforts taken to build a data base of such incidents. Initial analysis of this data provides basic statistics on the terrorism problem. These statistics in conjunction with linked narratives on each of the incidents together provide a more comprehensive picture of how these attacks were planned, organized and executed.

A preliminary analysis shows that in some of the incidents the bombs were placed randomly showing a lack of sophistication. In some cases the bombs were clustered while in some cases some amount of regularity is observed. This kind of analysis if carried out with complete data will help to classify the perpetrator groups in terms of their organization capabilities and level of sophistication in carrying out such attacks.