Category: Internal Security

Introduction On 15 February 2010 a well‑planned ambush against a state paramilitary outpost in the Silda area of West Bengal resulted in substantial loss of life and underscored enduring vulnerabilities in India’s internal security posture. The attack, executed by fighters belonging to the Naxalite‑Maoist insurgency in a coordinated manner, targeted an Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR)…

Summary and immediate facts The Rafiganj derailment of 10 September 2002 was a high‑casualty rail disaster in north‑central India in which a passenger train plunged from a bridge over the Dhave River, producing significant loss of life. The scale of fatalities and the site of the failure — a train leaving tracks while on a…

Introduction The Palar incident of 9 April 1993 stands as a pivotal and tragic episode in the study of violent criminality and insurgent-style tactics within peninsular India. Executed through a concealed explosive device on a forest route in Karnataka, the attack resulted in a large number of fatalities among a security convoy, marking it as…

Meenambakkam bomb blast — Introduction On 2 August 1984 a bomb exploded at the Meenambakkam international airport in Madras (the facility now operates as Chennai International Airport), producing significant civilian harm and disrupting a major transport node. The attack resulted in 33 people being killed and 27 others being injured. Responsibility was claimed by the…

Background On 18 May 2007 a violent blast occurred inside Makkah Masjid, a prominent mosque located in Hyderabad’s historic old city near the Charminar. The site is both a high-density urban religious venue and a cultural landmark, characteristics that make it a sensitive soft target in terms of population exposure and potential symbolic impact. Religious…

Introduction — March 2013 Bemina CRPF camp attack On 13 March 2013, an armed assault on a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) installation in the Bemina neighbourhood of Srinagar underscored persistent vulnerabilities faced by central paramilitary units operating in urban Kashmir. The engagement resulted in multiple fatalities among CRPF personnel, the two assailants being neutralized…

Incident overview On the evening of 13 March 2003, an improvised explosive device detonated as a suburban train was arriving at Mulund station in Mumbai. The device had been concealed in the first-class ladies’ compartment and exploded at the platform interface, inflicting casualties among occupants of that compartment and adjacent carriages. The blast resulted in…

Mandai massacre (8 June 1980) On 8 June 1980 an episode of extreme communal violence occurred in Mandai village near Agartala, Tripura. The incident targeted members of the Bengali community and is widely remembered in regional memory for the severity of the attack and the trauma it produced among survivors and neighbouring populations. Official casualty…

Kurnool Train Crash (21 December 2002): Analytical Introduction The late‑night derailment of a Hyderabad–Bengaluru express near Kurnool in December 2002 produced immediate human suffering and raised difficult questions about rail security, maintenance practices, and investigative transparency. The accident displaced an engine and several passenger carriages, resulting in multiple fatalities and scores of injured passengers, many…

Overview On 14 August 2003, a lethal attack in Kamalnagar resulted in the deaths of fourteen civilians and has since been recorded as a deliberate massacre of villagers. The victims were members of the Bengali Hindu community, and investigative records attribute responsibility to elements of the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF). The event stands as…

June 2013 Srinagar attack — Introduction The June 2013 assault on an Indian Army convoy in the Srinagar area of Jammu and Kashmir was a targeted ambush against military transport moving along a principal north–south route. The engagement, which occurred near Hyderpora on the Baramulla–Jammu national highway, resulted in the deaths of eight army personnel…

Introduction The Naxalite–Maoist insurgency in India originated from a localized uprising in 1967 and subsequent ideological schisms within the communist movement, which produced armed factions that adopted Maoist strategy. Those groups framed their struggle as a protracted rural insurgency intended to mobilize agrarian and marginalized communities against perceived state neglect and local hierarchies. Over time…

January 2003 Vile Parle Bicycle Bombing — Introduction Contemporary accounts of the January 2003 bicycle-bomb incident in Mumbai caution that much of the readily available narrative derives from a limited set of sources; researchers are therefore advised to corroborate details using independent reporting, archival newspapers, books, and scholarly databases (for example, JSTOR) and to consult…

Introduction and immediate effects On 13 May 2008 Jaipur experienced a highly coordinated urban terrorist strike that produced mass casualties and wide social shock. Multiple explosive devices detonated within a narrow time window at locations selected to maximize civilian presence and symbolic exposure, producing dozens of fatalities and several hundred injuries. The deliberate targeting of…

On 1 May 2019 security forces operating in the Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra were struck by a planned ambush that resulted in the deaths of 16 personnel. The attack combined sabotage of state mobility assets with a deliberately emplaced explosive, producing both immediate human loss and a wider operational disruption to law‑enforcement activity in a…

Overview and operational characteristics On 30 December 1996 a deliberate attack on a long-distance passenger train in western Assam represented a calibrated strike against civilian transportation infrastructure. The explosive device was emplaced adjacent to the track in a sparsely populated stretch between Kokrajhar and Fakiragram and appears to have been triggered as the high-speed service…

Introduction — 2013 Bodh Gaya attacks The bombings at the Mahabodhi Temple complex in July 2013 must be understood both as a discrete terrorist incident and as part of a broader pattern in which symbolic Buddhist sites have at times been the focus of targeted violence. Historically and regionally, attacks on religious monuments and pilgrimage…

Bagber massacre — Introduction An episode of lethal violence in Tripura in May 2000, carried out by an organised insurgent group, resulted in the killing of civilians who were attempting to seek safety outside a refugee settlement. The attack targeted displaced persons and exposed the acute vulnerability of internally displaced populations during periods of insurgent…

Introduction On the evening of 25 August 2007 Hyderabad experienced a coordinated terrorist assault that involved two near-simultaneous bomb detonations in busy urban locations. The attacks took place while the city was functioning as the administrative capital of Andhra Pradesh (now part of Telangana), striking sites frequented by the public and thereby maximizing potential civilian…

Introduction On 25 August 2003 two nearly simultaneous improvised explosive devices detonated in parked taxis at two central Mumbai locations, producing substantial civilian casualties (54 fatalities and 244 injured). The targets were a major waterfront tourist landmark and a densely frequented jewellery market adjacent to a historic temple—both sites characterized by heavy midday pedestrian and…

Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi: Context and Analytical Overview On 21 May 1991, a suicide bombing at Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, ended the life of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and several others, leaving a lasting imprint on India’s security and political landscape. The attacker, a young woman acting on behalf of a proscribed Sri Lankan Tamil…

Introduction On 6 April 2010 an ambush in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh resulted in one of the most severe single-day losses suffered by Indian security forces in the context of the Maoist insurgency. The incident, which targeted a contingent engaged in routine area-control duties, underscored both the lethal effectiveness of insurgent ambush techniques in forested…

Ajmer Dargah Bombing — Introduction On the evening of 11 October 2007, an explosive device detonated within the precincts of a major Sufi shrine in Ajmer, Rajasthan, at a time when the site was receiving worshippers after the breaking of the fast. The incident struck a religiously significant location, producing immediate humanitarian consequences and exposing…

Introduction On 29 September 2008 a small series of coordinated explosions struck locations in western India, producing immediate loss of life, multiple injuries and a prolonged investigative and judicial contestation. The incidents—two detonations in Malegaon (Maharashtra) and an explosion in Modasa (Gujarat)—typify the operational tactic of near-simultaneous low- to medium-yield devices intended to maximize disruption…

Introduction On the afternoon of 27 September 2008 an explosive device detonated in Mehrauli’s busy electronics market (Sarai) in south Delhi, producing multiple casualties and widespread alarm. The blast killed three people—among them a 13-year-old boy identified as Santosh—and injured over twenty others, many of whom were taken to major tertiary-care hospitals including AIIMS and…

Introduction On 22 April 2025, a coordinated armed assault in the forested approaches to the Baisaran Valley, near Pahalgam in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, resulted in the deaths of 26 civilians. The incident marked a severe escalation in violence against non-local visitors to the region and was widely reported as one of the deadliest civilian-directed…

Introduction The 9 June 2024 ambush in Reasi must be read against a long-standing pattern of communal and targeted violence that has affected India since the late twentieth century. Scholarly treatments frame such incidents within debates on religious persecution, freedom of religion and the political uses of communal violence. Over the past four decades, attacks…

2024 Bengaluru cafe bombing — Introduction On 1 March 2024 a deliberate explosive device detonated inside a café in Bengaluru, producing a small but consequential terrorist incident in India’s largest technology hub. The device, an improvised explosive charge concealed within a bag placed on the premises, wounded multiple civilians who were subsequently evacuated to hospital;…

Introduction — 2023 Rajouri attacks A sequence of violent incidents occurred in Dangri village, Rajouri district, Jammu and Kashmir, over 1–2 January 2023, comprising an armed shooting followed the next day by an improvised explosive device (IED) detonation in the same locality. The two events produced multiple civilian fatalities and injuries, and subsequent deaths among…

Introduction On 26 April 2023 an explosive device killed a unit of state reserve personnel in Dantewada district, Chhattisgarh, marking a lethal episode in the protracted Maoist insurgency in central India. The victims were members of a specialised district reserve guard who had been operating under intelligence direction; the loss of eleven personnel, including the…

Summary and immediate facts On 3 April 2021, a large-scale ambush by cadres of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) struck a contingent of Indian security forces operating on the border area between Sukma and Bijapur districts of Chhattisgarh, in the vicinity of Jonaguda village (administratively under Jagargunda police station). The engagement followed a coordinated…

Overview On 14 February 2019 a suicide vehicle-borne explosive attack targeted a convoy of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel on the Jammu–Srinagar corridor in Pulwama district, Kashmir. The strike resulted in heavy loss of life among the security contingent and the death of the attacker. The incident was quickly claimed by Jaish-e‑Mohammed (JeM), an…

Introduction In the predawn hours of 10 February 2018, a small unit of militants affiliated with a Pakistan-based Islamist organisation conducted a targeted assault on an Indian Army garrison in Jammu city. The choice of a military installation as the objective, and the timing of the operation, signalled clear intent to produce both tactical effect…

2018 Sukma attack — Introduction On 13 March 2018, an ambush in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh resulted in a lethal strike against a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) detachment when an explosive device was detonated beneath a security vehicle. The assault produced a substantial loss of life among the responding personnel and several wounded; reporting…

2017 Sukma ambush: analytical overview The attack in Sukma on 24 April 2017 must be situated within the prolonged Naxalite–Maoist insurgency that has affected central and eastern India for decades. This insurgency combines armed guerrilla tactics with political objectives focused on rural grievances, land issues and opposition to state institutions in remote, forested districts. Sukma…