In a bid to prevent seizure of expensive arms and ammunition by the Indian security forces from terrorists killed in encounters while infiltrating through the Line of Control (LoC) and the International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir, handlers of terrorism and Pakistani agencies have reverted to their earlier tactics of dumping weapons along the border for later being picked up by terrorists.

The Army and BSF have unearthed such dumps of weapons in the past some time that indicates departure of terrorists from their earlier tactic of sneaking through the LoC and IB carrying weapons. Pakistan-backed terrorists operating in Kashmir are reportedly short of weapons and were indulging in snatching these from personnel of the J&K Police and CRPF. Several such attempts in Kashmir were also thwarted during the past few days.

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The recent BSF’s detection of a cross-border tunnel bored by Pakistani authorities in the Samba Sector of Jammu also indicates that such rat holes were being built to push terrorists without touching the barbed wire fencing that is equipped with gadgets to capture any suspicious movement. Such tunnels were also detected few years ago when terrorism was at its peak.

But what was worrying was that the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI and other paramilitary organisations, besides dumping cache of arms and ammunition along the LoC and IB, have now also started transporting these through drones to their contacts working as over ground workers (OGWs) in J&K and Punjab. These are then transported to terrorists in Kashmir through trucks.

Atleast two trucks carrying weapons for terrorists in Kashmir from various locations in Punjab were seized by the police. Three Jaish-eMohammad (JeM) terrorists arrested while travelling in a truck from Punjab that was carrying four AK-56 and two AK-47 rifles, six magazines and 180 live AK rounds are reported to have said during interrogation that they got the cache from places near Amritsar.

Thereafter, a Kashmiri terrorist and two persons from Amritsar were taken into custody by the police.

The Army on Monday unearthed a couple of arms dumps of terrorists in the Rampur Sector along the LoC in north Kashmir. The cache included 5 AK rifles (along with 6 magazines and 2 sealed boxes with 1254 rounds of AK ammunition), 6 pistols (with nine magazines and six rounds), 21 grenades, two UBGL grenades and two Kenwood radio sets with one antenna.

It is not only the LoC in Kashmir, but it is also in the Jammu region where on 5 July the Army recovered a huge cache of arms. Pakistani currency valuing Rs 16,500, a compass, two map sheets, a bayonet, seven communication sets, a code sign and some other items were recovered during the operation.