munition at Hathlanga village near the LoC in the frontier town of Uri in north Kashmir.

“At present, the number of terrorists, besides arms and ammunition, across Kashmir is at an all-time low. Pakistan is desperate to infiltrate terrorists and arms and ammunition to Kashmir so that terrorist-related activities carry on unabated,” Chandpuria told reporters in Baramulla.

He said Pakistan was carrying out such desperate attempts as it could not accept the “prevailing peace and prosperity across the Kashmir valley”.

On Friday, a search operation was launched in the general area of Hathlanga Nala which lasted eight hours and concluded with the recovery of arms, ammunition and other war-like stores.

The Army and police recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition which included 8 AK-74U with 24 magazines and 560 rounds, 12 pistols with 24 magazines and 244 rounds, 14 grenades, 81 balloons with Pakistan flag imprints, 5 wheat bags with made-in-Pakistan imprints and other incriminating material.

“We are following the leads on the recovery of the arms and ammunition but can’t share details,” he said. “A close movement close to the launch pads was noticed. It seems the terrorists panicked and left the war-like stores behind before moving back to the PoK,” he said.

Chandpuria said intelligence agencies had been receiving inputs for the last two weeks about the infiltration attempts and dumping of war-like stores by terrorists in the Hathlanga village of the Rampur sector.

Searches were conducted for more than two weeks along the LoC.

Around eight anti-militancy operations were carried out in the same sector this year in which 14 AK assault rifles, 20 pistols, 1 M16 rifle, 76 hand grenades, 1226 AK rounds, 484 9mm rounds, 15 kg of drugs were recovered, General Chandpuria said.

Another Army officer said the security forces had stepped up anti-militancy operations and had set a target to bring down the number of active militants in Kashmir further.

“The Army is vigilant and won’t allow any infiltration into Kashmir,” he said.

The officer said short guns were being sent here by Pakistan just to target the civilians but “we will thwart those attempts”.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Baramulla, Rayees Muhammad Bhat said, “Balloons, which are typically sent more frequently to the Jammu side, have been sent to the Valley side for the first time. It perhaps points towards a kind of attempt to instigate certain propaganda again.”