Army recovers drone dropped arms, ammo in J&K; probe suggests JeM hand

Two consignments of arms and ammunition, which had been drone dropped by terrorists, have been recovered in the Akhnoor sector, police said on Tuesday.

"Two consignments of arms and ammunition have been recovered in Akhnoor sector, around 12 kilometres away from the border. The weapons were meant to be handed over to terrorists in Kashmir valley. The initial probe suggests that Jaish-e-Mohammed is behind this," said Jammu SSP Shridhar Patil in a press conference on Tuesday.

The arms and ammunition were airdropped by a Pakistani drone in a village in Akhnoor region, Army officials said.

A press statement from the police said, "On receipt of credible information, a joint search operation was launched. All the subordinate units/Naka were alerted to derail the nefarious designs of ANEs/ASE. The search operation started at various places in Jammu including Sohal Khad, Shamshan Ghat, Punnu Chowk, Sohal Market of Akhnoor."

During the search operation consignment of arms and ammunition was recovered from Sohal Khad, at about 00:50 hours in the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday. While recovering the consignment a drone sound was heard but due to darkness the same was not visible from the said place. The continuous search led to a recovery of another consignment of arms and ammunition, the press statement read.

The recovered Arms and ammunition was dropped by terrorists to carry out terrorist activities in the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir.

Accordingly, FIR under sections 121, 121-A, 123, 120-B, IPC, 13/21 ULA(P) Act, 7/27 Indian Arms Act was registered with police station Akhnoor and investigation thereof started.

The details of the Arms and ammunitions recovered are as follows: Two AK-47 Assault Rifles, three AK magazines, 90 rounds of 7.62 MM Ammunition, one Star Pistol, two Pistol Magazines, 14 Rounds of 9 MM Ammunition (Star Pistol), Packaging stuff containing blue Thermocol wrapped in adhesive tape with wooden attached fittings (fittings two packets) and synthetic/parachute thread two rolls about 300 metres in length each.