Terrorism in Nepal 1970-2015

SOURCE for the folllwoing information:

https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/ & https://www.kaggle.com/START-UMD/gtd

This dataset is the the collection and coding rules for the Global Terrorism Database (GTD),maintained by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). The dataset contains terrorist attack data from year 1970 to 2015. Due to data collection challenges terrorism related incidents for year 1993 has been excluded.

The GTD defines a terrorist attack as the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non–state actor to attain a political, economic,religious, or social goal through fear, coercion,or intimidation. In practice this means in order to consider an incident for inclusion in the GTD,all three of the following attributes must be present:

• The incident must be intentional :– the result of a conscious calculation on the part of a perpetrator.

• The incident must entail some level of violence or immediate threat of violence :– including property violence, as well as violence against people.

• The perpetrators of the incidents must be sub:–national actors. The database does not include acts of state terrorism.

See the GTD Codebook for important details: http://start.umd.edu/gtd/downloads/Codebook.pdf

Structure of Data:

156772 obs. of 137 variables

This database is huge. It has data for 205 countries.

Lets have have a macro view of the world from 1970-2015

1. Iraq had the most terrorist attack approx 18K
2. Pakistan had approx 12K
3. India had approx. 9K

I have not plotted some of the important places in the map because of unavailability of countries iso codes. Such as:

1. West Bank and Gaza Strip - approx 2k
2. West Germany (FRG) - approx. 500
3. Bolivia - 314
4. Venezuela - 269
5. Kosovo - 180

Since I am only interested in Nepal, plots from here onwards will reflect terrorism attack in Nepal only.

Shitload of things happened between 1990 - 2007:

1. 1990 - people’s movement began during sweet spring. nepal under 1990 constitution became parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy.
2. 1996 - Maoist revolt began which lasted for more than a decade. Above on the graph this period has been highligted with light red color.
3. 2001 - Royal palace masacre. [Who could forget!!!]
4. 2001 - gyanendra was crownded as a king on 4 june 2004. ruled a a king from 2001 - 2008.
5. 2001 - Gyandndra gives green light to use RNA to fight against Maowadi
6. 2003 - Gov and rebels delcares ceasefire [reflected on the plot]
7. 2005 - Gyanendra restores an absolute monarchy
8. 2006 - democracy movement a.k.a loktantrik andolan or people’s movement - II ( jana andolan - II) against direct and undemocratic rule of king gyanendra
9. 2006 - Gov signs peace treaty with Maowadi

Interestingly there is high spike after 2006 notably 2008 and 2013. My assumption was after 2006 the terrorist related attack will go down significantly.

Density Plot above clearly shows that the “Babali” years were 2003 till 2007.

From 1970 to 2015 there were 923 terrorist related incidents as defined by GTD.

First obvious question is

Ok who are the perpetrators?????????

##  [1] "United Liberation Torchbearers Forces"                       
##  [2] "Unknown"                                                     
##  [3] "All Nepal Free Nationalist Students Union"                   
##  [4] "Anti-Monarchists"                                            
##  [5] "Left-Wing Terrorists"                                        
##  [6] "United People's Front"                                       
##  [7] "Political Group"                                             
##  [8] "Rival Party Members"                                         
##  [9] "National People's Movement Coordination Committee"           
## [10] "Communist Party of Nepal- Maoist (CPN-M)"                    
## [11] "Communist Party of Nepal- Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML)"
## [12] "Nepali Congress Party (NC)"                                  
## [13] "Other"                                                       
## [14] "Maoists"                                                     
## [15] "Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HuM)"                                  
## [16] "All Nepal National Free Student Union-Revolutionary"         
## [17] "Anti-Government Guerrillas"                                  
## [18] "Maoist Communist Center (MCC)"                               
## [19] "Communist Party of India - Maoist (CPI-Maoist)"              
## [20] "Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha (JTMM)"                       
## [21] "Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha- Goit (JTMM-G)"               
## [22] "Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha- Jwala Singh (JTMM-J)"        
## [23] "Young Communist League"                                      
## [24] "Madhesi People<U+0092>s Rights Forum (MPRF)"                        
## [25] "Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha- Bisphot Singh (JTMM-B)"      
## [26] "Terai Army"                                                  
## [27] "United Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha (U-JTMM)"              
## [28] "Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha- Prithvi Singh (JTMM-P)"      
## [29] "Nepal Defense Army"                                          
## [30] "Samyukta Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha (SJTMM)"             
## [31] "Terai Cobra"                                                 
## [32] "Madhesi Mukti Tigers (MMT)"                                  
## [33] "Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha- Rajan Mukti (JTMM-R)"        
## [34] "Akhil Terai Mukti Morcha (ATMM)"                             
## [35] "Ranbir Sena"                                                 
## [36] "Kirat Janabadi Workers Party"                                
## [37] "Madhesi Virus Killers"                                       
## [38] "Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha- Ranbir Singh (JTMM-RS)"      
## [39] "National Liberation Army (Nepal)"                            
## [40] "Rastriya Janashakti Party (RJP)"                             
## [41] "Madhesh Rastra Janatantrik Revolutionary (RJR) - Nepal"      
## [42] "Mahan Madhesh Janakantri Party (MMJP)- Nepal"                
## [43] "Mongolian Mukti Morcha"                                      
## [44] "Bhisan Himali Bag"                                           
## [45] "Himali Tigers"                                               
## [46] "Tharuhat Joint Struggle Committee (TJSC)"                    
## [47] "Terai Rastriya Mukti Sena (TRMS)"                            
## [48] "People's Liberation Army (India)"                            
## [49] "Terai Janatantrik Madhes Party"                              
## [50] "Janatantrik Terai Madhesh Mukti Morcha (JTMMM)"              
## [51] "Samyukta Jatiya Mukti Morcha (SJMM)"                         
## [52] "Dynamic Youth Forum"                                         
## [53] "Swatantra Nepal Dal"                                         
## [54] "Terai Madheshi Mukti Morcha (TMMM)"                          
## [55] "Madhesh Mukti Sangram (MMS)"                                 
## [56] "Khumbuwan Mukti Morcha"                                      
## [57] "Sanghiya Limbuwan Committee (SLC)"                           
## [58] "Janatantrik Terai Madhes Mukti Party- Bhagat Singh (JTMMP)"  
## [59] "Samyukta Terai Madhes Mukti Party"                           
## [60] "Communist Party of Nepal (People's War Group)"               
## [61] "Sudurpaschim Janata Dal"                                     
## [62] "Biswabhumi Sena Bishal Nepal"                                
## [63] "Shiv Sena"                                                   
## [64] "Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (Baidya)"                    
## [65] "Terai Communist Party"                                       
## [66] "Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)"                   
## [67] "Communist Party of Nepal - Maoist (CPN-Maoist-Chand)"        
## [68] "Hindu Morcha Nepal"                                          
## [69] "United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF)"

According to GTD we have 69 groups who have used illegal force and violence to attain a political, economic,religious, or social goal through fear, coercion,or intimidation.

There are so many group I have never heard of them in my life. Terai Cobra???? Nepal Defense Army ??????? Who are these guys? Wikipedia: The Nepal Defence Army is a mainly ethnic Terai armed pro-Hindu group in Nepal. They were responsible for a bombing of a church in Kathmandu in 2009, and also attempted another triple bombing in 2012. They call for the return of the Nepalese Hindu Monarchy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepal_Defence_Army

##  [1] "janatantrik terai mukti morcha (jtmm)"                     
##  [2] "janatantrik terai mukti morcha- goit (jtmm-g)"             
##  [3] "janatantrik terai mukti morcha- jwala singh (jtmm-j)"      
##  [4] "janatantrik terai mukti morcha- bisphot singh (jtmm-b)"    
##  [5] "terai army"                                                
##  [6] "united janatantrik terai mukti morcha (u-jtmm)"            
##  [7] "janatantrik terai mukti morcha- prithvi singh (jtmm-p)"    
##  [8] "samyukta janatantrik terai mukti morcha (sjtmm)"           
##  [9] "terai cobra"                                               
## [10] "janatantrik terai mukti morcha- rajan mukti (jtmm-r)"      
## [11] "akhil terai mukti morcha (atmm)"                           
## [12] "janatantrik terai mukti morcha- ranbir singh (jtmm-rs)"    
## [13] "terai rastriya mukti sena (trms)"                          
## [14] "terai janatantrik madhes party"                            
## [15] "janatantrik terai madhesh mukti morcha (jtmmm)"            
## [16] "terai madheshi mukti morcha (tmmm)"                        
## [17] "janatantrik terai madhes mukti party- bhagat singh (jtmmp)"
## [18] "samyukta terai madhes mukti party"                         
## [19] "terai communist party"

I ran a quick filter to signle out group name that contains the word - terai.

19 out of 69 perperator group names have TERAI words.

Top 10 Perperators ranked by their no. of attacks:

Top 10 Perperators ranked by no of people killed by them

Top 10 Perperators ranked by their no. of attacks with types of attacks

Types of Terrorist attack by year

I have also marked the 1996 and 2006 as Maowadi period. Facinating… there are lot of attacks after 2006. There are lot of bombings after 2006.

Weapons of Terrorist by year

Terrorist target

Perpetrator’s activity by year.

Most of the perpetrators are active post-Maowadi war.

again lots of activity around terai belt.