A senior Central Bureau of Investigation officer on Friday said terrorism has claimed at least 71,000 lives in the country in the past ten years.

Addressing a seminar, organsied by the Indian Institute of Public Administration on the 'Internal Security in India' at the Academic Staff College in Visakhapatnam [Images] on Thursday, Superintendent of Police A Sai Manohar said terrorists were targeting religious and other crowded places to inflict maximum loss to the life and property to destabilise law and order, and internal security in the country.

He said 2,765 deaths were registered in 2006 compared to 3,236 in the previous year due to terrorism. Out of this, 27 per cent was due to Left wing extremism and 23 per cent in the North East and 41 per cent in Jammu and Kashmir [Images]. Out of the 608 districts in the country, 231 were plagued by terrorism, he added.

Today, terrorism was being adopted as an alternative to war. It was proxy war to be precise, targeting vital installations and business centres, he said, and added it was also being used to arouse communal tensions in peaceful areas.

As part of Fidayeen attacks on security forces and other strategic targets, a total of 50 such attacks had been carried out in different parts of the country during the past three years.

Fatalities in Maoist violence during 2006 accounts to 742 in which 266 civilian people, 128 security forces and 348 Maoists had lost their lives, he added.