Srinagar, Sep 1: 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 told the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) 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.
He said that the area has villages ahead of the anti-infiltration fence. “The suspected modus operandi is to drop war like stores in caches near the Line of Control, subsequently OGWs or militants would pick the same for further transportation into the hinterland for militant activities,” Colonel Kalia said, adding that “as reported earlier, similar attempts were made on 22 July 20, when inputs were received regarding likely weapon drop along the Line of Control ahead of the anti-infiltration fence.
During the search operation along the Line of Control in Rampur Sector, Baramulla, 01 AKS-74U with magazines, 05 pistols (one with Chinese markings) & magazines, 24 grenades & other warlike stores were recovered.”
The army spokesman said that the modus operandi shows desperate attempts by Pakistan based militant groups to infiltrate weapons into J&K for terror activities, with active connivance of Pakistan Army. “Robust surveillance and Line of Control domination activities will continue to deny all such misadventures,” the defence spokesman said.
