Motivation of the Terrorists: A Case Study

Objective: A violent act of terrorist group produces wide spread fear among common people and obtains worldwide recognition by attracting the attention of the media. They harass the government, affect the country’s economy and influence government decisions to satisfy their vengeance. Terrorist’s activities aim towards destruction. The allocated resources by the government sectors to the task of preventing terrorism are not completely fruitful due to lack of foundation in understanding the terrorist’s behavior. Methods: A terror attack in the present study is a series of bomb blast that took place at Mumbai on 11th July 2006. These attacks have posed the question of security for its citizens. 30 terrorist participated in the bomb blast were brought by Anti terror Squad of Mumbai for subjecting to the scientific techniques of Narco analysis, Polygraph and Brain Mapping tests collectively called deception detection tests. Application of these scientific techniques to evaluate criminal evidence has advanced the criminal justice system throughout the country. When criminals erase all the evidences of their involvement scientific and highly sophisticated scientific methods are required to trace the involvement of criminals. Results and conclusions: Behavior of a terrorist varies depending on their individual intelligence, education, finance and their affiliation to organization. Factors such as perceived injustice, religion, identity, belongingness and autonomy are seen as psychological motivation for an individual in joining and staying with the terrorist groups. Joining a terrorist group gives them a sense of revolutionary heroism and self-importance that they previously lacked as individuals. Understanding varied terrorist motivations and behaviors at the individual level can provide insight to the causes of particular behaviors and helps in framing. This study is an effort to help Government to improve counterterrorist methods and policies by understanding their motivational behavior.