The recent serial bomb blasts in Jaipur have only reinforced India’s position of being one of the worst terrorism-hit countries in the world. Barring trouble-torn nations like Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, terrorist violence claims more lives in India than in any other nation.

According to the 2007 Report on Terrorism brought out by the National Counter-terrorism Centre, a US Government agency, 1,093 people were killed in terrorist incidents in India last year. These also included the killings of Hindi speaking people in Assam by the ULFA activists and the deaths caused in Naxalite violence in Chhattisgarh.

The report also listed 13 high-casualty incidents of terrorist violence in the country, including the serial blasts in UP and Hyderabad and the Samjhauta Express blast.

Worldwide, 22,685 people were killed by terrorists in about 14,000 terrorist strikes. Iraq alone accounted for 13,606 of those deaths. Afghanistan with 1,966 casualties and Pakistan with 1,335 deaths were the other countries to have witnessed large number of killings by terrorist organisations, the report, released on April 30, said.

While Pakistan recorded more than 850 major and minor incidents, not all of which led to casualties, Iraq had more than 6,200 incidents of terrorist violence.