Abstract

Terrorism is a global threat in which perpetrators aim to maximize fear in society through devastating attacks. India’s peninsular geography and transnational borders create strategic terrorism challenges. We analyzed multiple hypotheses about the proximity of high-impact attacks (HIAs) from international and inter-state boundaries of Indian states, categorized into states with maritime and transnational geographies. The K-means suggested four classifications of attacks of interests’ (AOI) distances from international boundaries. The KS test on HIA’s shortest border distances demonstrated that underlying distributions vary between maritime and land-bordered states. We identified that HIA’s lethality is inversely proportional to their distance from borders. Most HIAs occurred within 68 kilometres of interstate borders. Maritime-bordered states reported a three times longer time between AOIs than land-bordered states. These insights regarding HIAs can help agencies to formulate better border security measures.

Focus points in the article

1. Terrorist attacks in India are heavily concentrated near borders.
2. Lethality of attacks increases as terrorists get closer to the border.
3. Land-border states face attacks far more frequently than maritime states.
4. K-means clustering reveals four distance-based risk zones.
5. Border proximity shapes terrorist strategy and mobility.

Published article

The journal article is available at Humanities and Social Science Communications - DOI: 10.1057/s41599-025-05952-z