Monitor News Desk
Srinagar: The Army on Tuesday said that Pakistan has adopted a new trend to drop arms and ammunition close to the line of control (LoC) to fuel militancy in the valley but the same has been blocked by the security agencies.
Addressing a press conference, General officer Commanding (GOC) of 19 Infantry division, Baramulla, Major General Varinder Vats said that “Pakistan is frustrated due to blockade of infiltration and cooperation between the security agencies had forced it to push more advanced weapons into the valley.”
“But the halt in supply chain has left militants high and dry. In South Kashmir, militants possess only pistols,” he said.
He said that Pakistan is “unrelenting in its effort to push in arms to strengthen militancy in Kashmir but alert troops along the LoC have been able to defeat the attempts.”
“The tactics used by Pakistan to smuggle weapons into India after facing frustration as all its infiltration bids have failed and that it was now trying to push in weapons by dumping the same in the areas close to the LoC,” the army officer said.
“Pakistan task the Over ground workers (OGWs) who reside in villages close to the LoC to deliver the weapons to militants. But so far all such bids have failed,” he said, while referring to the multiple hideouts busted by the army in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district.
To mention, the Army Tuesday claimed to have busted multiple hide-outs along the LoC in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district and recovered huge cache of arms that were meant to be delivered to militants.
Defence spokesman in Srinagar Rajesh Kalia said that alert troops detected movement of suspicious persons along the Line of Control in Rampur Sector, Baramulla district on August 30.
“The movement was from a village close to the Line of Control and the suspects crossed into Indian Territory. Due to terrain of thick foliage and weather condition an alert of likely infiltration attempt was sounded,” the Colonel Kalia said, adding that “The Surveillance Grid was beefed up all across the area and along the likely infiltration routes; ambushes were sited to thwart any attempt of infiltration. Surveillance continued throughout the night.”
He said that subsequently, next morning at around 5 am a search of the area was carried out.
“After extensive search of seven hours, a huge cache of arms and ammunition were recovered from well concealed locations in two hideouts in Rampur Sector (of Uri area of Baramulla. “The cache of arms recovered comprises of five AK Series Rifles (along with six magazines & two sealed boxes with 1254 rounds of AK ammunition), Six pistols (with nine magazines & six rounds), Twenty-one grenades, two UBGL grenades and two Kenwood Radio sets with one antenna,” the Defence spokesman said. (With inputs from KNO)
