A viral graphic underlining the Communist Party of India (CPI) as the 12th most deadliest terror organization of 2022 is being widely circulated across social media. Social media users are sharing the graphic with the claim that the left-wing political party has finally been acknowledged for its terror activities.
Claim:
The viral graphic is titled, ‘20 Deadliest Terror Groups of 2022’. The list begins with Islamic State, followed by Al-Shabaab. ‘Communist Party of India’ occupies the 12th place on the list. The corresponding ‘Deaths’, ‘Attacks’ and ‘Injured’ persons for each group are entered correspondingly in the list.
The viral claim reads, “Institute for Economics and Peace in its latest Global Terrorism Index lists 20 deadliest terror groups of 2022. At 12, is the Communist Party of India.”
Pratheesh Viswanath, the founder of Hindu Seva Kendra, shared the graphic on Twitter with the claim, “Congratulations Communist Party of India for being named in top 20 deadliest terror groups of 2022. Your name is found amoung your sister concerns ie jehadi outfits. Try to be in top 10 next time.”
Fact Check:
We conducted a keyword search for ‘20 deadliest terror groups of 2022’, which threw up a report by Hindustan Times published on March 16, 2023.
The report titled ‘India among worst-hit but terror not top concern to daily safety’ notes that India was among the 25 worst terror-hit countries but also among 56 of the 120 nations surveyed, with none of the respondents selecting war and terror as the biggest threat to their daily safety, as per the 10th edition of the Global Terrorism Index (GTI).
“The report listed the Communist Party of India (Maoist) as the 12th deadliest terror group in 2022, ahead of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (13th) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (16th). The Maoists were responsible for 39 deaths and 30 injuries in 61 attacks last year,” the Hindustan Times report read.
We then conducted a keyword search to check the official Global Terrorism Index report released by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP). On Page 12, the list of the 20 Deadliest Terror Groups is visible.
As per the list, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) occupies the 12th spot. The rest of the terrorist organisations are identical in both the viral image and the official list from the Institute for Economics & Peace.
To underline, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) was founded on 21 September 2004 and has been designated as a terrorist organisation in India under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act since 2009.
A document uploaded on the Ministry of Home Affairs website notes that CPI (Maoist) and all its front organization formations have been included in the list of banned terrorist organizations under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, of 1967.
We also came across a report published by the Times of India on March 17, 2023. The report notes that due to a “goof-up” the Communist Party of India landed up as one of the deadliest terror groups in the world.
As per the TOI report, the index is produced using data from the Terrorism Tracker of Dragonfly, which provides event records on terrorist attacks since January 1, 2007. The dataset includes over 65,000 terrorist incidents from 2007 to 2022. According to the Dragonfly website, it is a geopolitical intelligence service for professionals who guide decision-making in the world’s leading organisations.
“Dragonfly acknowledged the error. “Our data refers to a group called “Communist Party of India – Maoist” (CPI-M, a.k.a Communist Party of India (Maoist)” adds the Times of India report.
In a follow-up report published by the Times of India on March 18, 2023, the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), headquartered in Sydney, Australia has corrected the report related to Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2023 after the Communist Party of India (CPI) was wrongly included in the list of deadliest terror groups of 2022.
“The report utilizes Dragonfly’s Terrorism Tracker data and incorporated the terminology used in their database, which mislabelled the Communist Party of India as it did not include the correct (Maoist) addition. As soon as we were made aware, we took immediate action and corrected the report to accurately reflect the title of Communist Party of India (Maoist),” said a representative of Team IEP. A new link with the revised list was also uploaded on the web,” reads the TOI news report.
Conclusion:
We found that the viral graphic showing the Communist Party of India in the list of 20 Deadliest Terror Groups is outdated. The Institute for Economics and Peace published a report which contained an erroneous addition of the Communist Party of India instead of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). The report has been corrected and the error has been acknowledged.
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Also Read: Was A Christian Person Lynched By A Hindu Mob? No, Viral Video Is Shared With False Claim
https://thelogicalindian.com/h-upload/2023/03/21/500x300_230681-new-project-2023-03-21t144235032.webp
Fact Check
2023-03-21 10:16:49.0
Is The Communist Party Of India One Of The Leading Terror Groups? No, Viral Graphic Is False
