Terror toll in Maharashtra was more than J&K in 2008

The restive state of Jammu and Kashmir is the first name that usually comes to mind when one thinks ofterrorism in the country. Thusit may come as surprise to many that in 2008 the number of victims of terror in Mumbai was just two less than in Kashmir.

The single terror strike of 26/11 on Mumbai resulted in the deaths of 164 people. In contrast there were 708 terrorist attacks in J&K during 2008 in which 166 people were killed. Thus at the end of the year the total number of terrorists' victims in J&K was only two more than in Mumbai.

And if the death toll of seven from the September 29, 2008 Malegaon bomb blast is added to number of persons killed during 26/11 attack in Mumbai then it emerges that in 2008 more people died at the hands of terrorists in Maharashtra than in insurgency-hit J&K.

The number of people falling victim to terrorists' bullets in J&K has been steadily declining over the past few years. The toll came down from 540 in 2006 to 268 in 2007 and finally 166 last year.

During the same period Maharashtra had a bad year in 2006 when 187 people were killed in Mumbai suburban train bombings and 37 people died of explosions at Malegaon. It was followed by a lull in 2007 when no major attacks took place and terror shifted to other places such as Hyderabad, Ajmer, Ludhiana and Varanasi. The quiet was shattered at the fag end of 2008 when the three day terror siege of Mumbai left 164 dead.

In fact J&K now is not as severely hit by terrorism as many other parts of India. It stands a distant third on the list in terms of lives lost to terror in 2008. It was the Naxal-affected states that suffered most -- where 721 civilians and security men were killed. The Northeast came second with 512 deaths. In both these regions the number of terrorist attacks has only been going up every year since 2006, whereas they are on the decline in J&K.
Mumbai and Terror

Mumbai's vulnerability to terror can be understood from the fact that since 1993 it has witnessed bomb blasts at 22 locations. These explosions killed 333 people and injured more that one thousand. Moreover, it is the only megapolis in the world to have been serial bombed twice -- once in 1993 and then again in 2006.