Security forces on Tuesday thwarted militants’ attempts to disturb peace during the peak tourist season and panchayat elections when they busted a huge arms dump and recovered a large cache of automatic weapons from an apple orchard in Sopore.
Lieutenant Colonel JS Brar, spokesperson, Indian Army, said that in coordination with the special operations group of the state police, the 52 Rashtriya Riffles of the Indian Army recovered six AK rifles, 13 pistols and one under barrel grenade launcher besides other warlike stores including eight kilograms of explosives and Improvised Explosive Device making stores in an orchard at Batpora-Ningeli in north Kashmir.
“The weapons and other warlike stores were meant either as supplies to new incoming infiltrating cadre or re-supply to resident cadre for creating mayhem. They were in a properly packed state and were pretty new in their origin date." Lieutenant Colonel JS Brar said.
The defence spokesperson said the seizure of the arms and ammunitions has dealt a major blow to the plans of the militants.
“The recovery of a huge cache of arms and ammunition dealing a major blow to the terrorists' designs to disrupt peace in Kashmir Valley in the peak tourist season and the ongoing Panchayat elections”, he said.
Superintendent of police, Sopore Altaf Ahmad Khan said services of sniffer dogs were used in this operation. “Based onspecific information about the presence of hideout of LeT at a Forest Nursery at Village Nigli Sopore, a joint search operation was launched by Police Sopore and 52 RR”, he said.
This is the third major cache after the recovery of 19 weapons in the dense forests of Trehgam on May6. On May 8, 13 weapons were seized in Rajwar forests which borders the Line of Control in north Kashmir district of Kupwara.
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