New Delhi: India is the third worst hit by terror in the world, data released by US department of state said. This is the second time in a row that the country has featured in the list on the same position, which was held by Pakistan till 2015. Meanwhile, Iraq is the largest victim to terror attacks followed by Afghanistan. (ALSO READ – Jaish, Lashkar Continue to Pose Threat in Subcontinent, Pak Didn’t Address Concerns in 2017, Says US)

Furthermore, the data claimed that India has witnessed 860 terror attacks in 2017 out of which 25 per cent were reported from Jammu and Kashmir alone. The state has reportedly witnessed a surge of about 24 per cent in the number of terror attacks in the same year.

In the most recent attack in J&K, three policemen were abducted and brutally killed in Shopian district by Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists on Friday. Hitting back strongly, India called off the foreign ministry-level talks with Pakistan. The development came within 24 hours of the confirmation that Sushma Swaraj would be meeting Pak Foreign Minister SM Qureshi on the sidelines of UNGA scheduled to happen later this month in New York.

Briefing the media, MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, “The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirmed that Pakistan will not mend its ways.”

The US study also termed Maoists as the fourth deadliest terror group in the world,  and claimed that the group was behind 53 per cent of attacks in India in 2017. As per the study, Maoists carried out 295 attacks out of the total 860 witnessed by the country last year.

The Islamic State tops the list of deadliest terror group in the world, followed by Taliban and Al-Shabaab.

Courtesy: India