No Major Bomb Blasts/Terror Attacks Since 2014: Modi. Claim Is False

Bengaluru: Prime Minister Modi at BJP rally

Claim: “When Congress' mahamilavati [highly spurious] remote government was at the Centre, didn't blasts occur in Bengaluru? Was not the nation living under fear of terror attacks? Did any major blast take place in last five years of your chowkidaar's chowkidaari? It was the power of your one vote that made it possible.”

That was Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking at a public rally in Bengaluru on April 13, 2019.

Fact: False.

On December 28, 2014, almost seven months after Modi became prime minister, Bengaluru’s Church Street was bombed, killing one and injuring two.

Other major terror attacks and bombings include:

• A car bomb attack near Pulwama, Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), on February 14, 2019, in which 40 paramilitary soldiers were killed.
• An improvised explosive device (IED) blast in Sukma, Chhattisgarh, on March 13, 2018, in which nine Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were killed.
• A Maoist attack in Sukma, Chhattisgarh, on April 24, 2017, in which 25 soldiers were killed.
• A terrorist attack on an army base in Uri, J&K, on September 18, 2016, in which 17 soldiers were killed.
• A terror attack in Baramulla, J&K, on October 3, 2016, in which one Border Security Force (BSF) soldier was killed.
• An attack on an army base in Nagrota, J&K, on November 29, 2016, in which seven soldiers were killed.
• A terror attack in Pathankot, Punjab, in January 2016, in which five soldiers were killed.
• An attack on Mohra army camp in J&K on December 5, 2014, in which 11 security forces personnel were killed.

From January 1, 2014, up to April 11, 2019, there have also been 942 bombings reported in India, according to data from the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP). These have resulted in 451 deaths and 1,589 injuries.

As for terror attacks, six attacks were reported between 2014 and December 31, 2018, nationwide, in addition to the 1,708 attacks in J&K, 2,442 in the northeast and 4,969 attacks by Maoists, according to a February 5, 2019, reply in the Lok Sabha, parliament’s lower house.

A bomb blast was reported in a Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train on March 7, 2017, in which 11 persons were injured, the government informed parliament on March 29, 2017. The National Investigation Agency filed a chargesheet against four men said to be associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), India Today reported on August 8, 2017.

As many as 174 IED blasts took place in India in 2018, which claimed 108 lives; as well as 244 in 2017 that killed 61, as FactChecker reported on February 26, 2019, citing The New Indian Express.

There were 406 “blast incidents” (337 IEDs and 69 explosive ordnance) nationwide in 2016, according to data collected by the National Security Guard’s (NSG) National Bomb Data Centre (NBDC), as we reported on September 18, 2018, quoting a Lok Sabha reply.

As many as 112 persons were killed and 479 injured in IED blasts, and six killed and 26 injured in explosive ordnance blasts, in 2016, according to NBDC data. “The NBDC data includes all major as well as minor Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) blast incidents in the country, including those which are accidental in nature,” the Lok Sabha reply said.

In 2015, there were 268 IED blasts, and in 2014, 190, The Economic Times reported on July 12, 2018, citing data from NBDC’s journal Bombshell.

(Ahmad is an intern with IndiaSpend and FactChecker.)

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