he main purpose of using Chinese grenades is that Pakistan doesn’t want any weapons used in Jammu and Kashmir to be traced back to it
AN IPS OFFICER INVOLVED IN COUNTER-INSURGENCY OPS
NEW DELHI: Pakistan is supplying Chinese-made grenades and sophisticated ammunition in large quantities to terror groups in the Kashmir Valley so that it cannot be blamed for subversive activities in India, an assessment by agencies conducting counterinsurgency operations has concluded.
According to an internal document accessed by HT, 70 Chinese grenades (64 in 2018 and six so far in 2019) have been seized by security forces in Jammu and Kashmir since January 1 last year.
The document said security forces had recovered pistols, armour piercing incendiary (API) shells and tracer rounds of Chinese origin from terrorists belonging to different groups.
“The API includes both mild steel core and hard steel core (which can pierce bulletproof jackets used by Indian security forces) and its use brings a new dimension of threat for the security forces,” the document stated.
Other than the seizures, a dozen incidents documented in the past 15 months involved either trained terrorists or overground workers (OGWs) of terror groups lobbing grenades at patrol parties, bunkers, vehicles or camps of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and other paramilitary forces, Jammu and Kashmir Police, and the army.
The most recent grenade attack in the Kashmir Valley took place on Tuesday, when a terrorist hurled a grenade at a National Conference election meeting in the Tral area.
Two people were killed and 32 injured in a grenade attack at Jammu’s inter-state bus stand on March 7.
An Indian Police Service officer involved in counter-insurgency operations, who didn’t want to be identified, said: “These attacks had a mix of both grenades made in China and Pakistan, but there is a sudden spurt in the use of Chinese ones.”
