Guerrilla hideouts busted in Kashmir's Kathua, Rajouri

Security forces on Saturday busted two guerrilla hideouts in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua and Rajouri districts and recovered an amount of explosive material and weapons, officials said.

In the seizure in Kathua, an amount of explosive material used in preparing "lethal Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs)" was recovered, defence spokesman, Col. Manish Mehta told IANS.

"In a joint operation, personnel of Rising Star Corps' intelligence unit and Jammu and Kashmir Police recovered a cache of locally-made explosives, along with a number of other items which can be used in making IEDs, from the remote village of Jutha near Bilawar in Kathua," he said.

He said the search was carried out on basis of specific information.

"The search of suspected area yielded recovery of locally made explosives, glass shrapnel, pencil batteries, gelatin sticks, primer cords and detonator," he said.

Arms and ammunition were recovered from the hideout in Rajouri district, a police spokesman told IANS here.

"Army and police, acting on specific intelligence inputs, busted a guerrilla hideout in Nowshera area of Rajouri district today (Saturday)," he said.

A cache of arms and ammunition was recovered from the hideout, he said, adding this included two IEDs weighing 3.5 and 4.5 kg respectively, a Chinese-made hand grenade, 52 cartridges, pouches and two magazines.