The plan has been conceived under the RCSS/NTS project, “Preventing and Combating Terrorism.” The challenge of terrorism in South Asia is a major destabilizing factor in building the environment of trust, confidence and regional cooperation. Since 1970s onwards, South Asia has witnessed a steady growth of terrorist organizations posing a serious challenge to state policies. With the intensification of inter and intra-state conflicts in South Asia, the menace of terrorism assumed a serious nature. Bomb blasts, suicide attacks, assassinations, kidnappings, hijacking and other acts of terrorism became a normal feature in the region.

The three countries of South Asia, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka experienced the worst kind of terrorist violence in the last three decades. The Afghan war unleashed as a sequel to the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979 resulted into worst form of backlash on Pakistan in the form of hundreds of terrorist acts resulting into thousands of deaths. Similarly, India experienced unprecedented terrorist acts in its North Eastern States and Punjab. In Sri Lanka, the Tamil-Sinhala conflict resulted into the unwarranted use of force against the non-combatants causing massive loss of innocent lives. Years of civil strife in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh led to the incidents of violence from the state forces and the insurgent Chakma groups. The recent phase of political violence in Nepal in the shape of Maoist insurgency is another manifestation of the failure of state and the non-conformist groups to follow a peaceful path for the resolution of their conflicts. The use of violence and the spread of terrorist acts tend to cause more insecurity and chaos in Nepal’s fragile political order. Above the challenge of terrorism in different South Asian countries are the charges of state and cross border terrorism levied by India and Pakistan against each other particularly related to the Kashmir conflict. Events unfolding after September 11, 2001 further compounded the issue of terrorism as a major bone of contention between New Delhi and Islamabad with both sides blaming each other of encouraging and promoting terrorist acts.

South Asia is a victim of the failure of regional states to formulate policies which could collectively help meet the challenge of terrorism. The South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in its last summit held in Katmandu in January 2002 decided to tackle the issue of terrorism but so far no concrete policy at the regional level has been formulated which could al least help the South Asian countries collectively deal with the menace of terrorism. While the phenomenon of terrorism has been widely debated in South Asia particularly in the post-September 11 scenario, there is a need to create a regional data base containing information about terrorist acts on periodic basis, profile of terrorist organizations and a discussion group on the issue of terrorism.

 It is against this background that a modest effort has been made by PPSCR in collaboration with the RCSS to create a database on terrorism, which will contain information sought from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The data base will be regularly updated with the assistance of our partners in these countries so that a balanced and an objective reservoir of information on the issue of terrorism is created and is readily available to researchers and other interested people.

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·        Attachment of all such websites, which contain information about the issue of terrorism in South Asia.
·        Creation of links of organizations in South Asia working on terrorism and the smooth sharing of information and data among these organizations.
·        Continuous updating of sections of database dealing with the activities of terrorist groups, casualties as a result of terrorist attacks, counter-terrorist methods and so forth.
·        A discussion group in the database exclusively dealing with the issue of terrorism will be launched.

It is expected that the database will become a significant source of information and discussion on the issue of terrorism will have a regional and also extra-regional participation.

Rationale
Users of database will have up-to-date information about terrorist events taking place in the South Asian countries covered in this project. Links created with the website will provide additional source of information to researchers from the region and outside working on the issue of terrorism. The purpose of discussion group will be to share perceptions on different aspects of terrorism among the participants while the moderator will help facilitate the course of discussion.

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It will be the utmost effort of our team involved in the preparation of Chronology to provide accurate and objective information on terrorist events so that researchers and policy-makers can benefit from the availability of such a great reservoir of data and facts on terrorism. Once the Chronology is prepared by a team of researchers from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, it will be uploaded on the PPSCR data base and also in the websites of organizations involved in RCSS/NTS research project. It will also be available to readers in the published form. 

Rationale
 Chronology of terrorist events will give country wise information on the topic since 1971 till 2004. It will be of immense use to researchers interested in getting data on terrorist events for that span of time

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June 1 to December 31, 2003

1. Selection of country representatives.
2. Preparation of Profiles.
3. Preparation of Chronology.
4. Preparation of databases and links.
5. Holding of review meeting in the last week of October 2003.

PHASE TWO

January 1 to June 30, 2004

1. Completion of Profiles and Databases.
2. Completion of Chronology.
3. Review of Profiles.
4. Finalization of Profiles for publication.
5. Publication of Profiles
6. Publication of Chronology

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