Guns come out when Rajouri fields are dug up

RAJOURI (JAMMU), APRIL 30: It was three in the morning on April 20 when a Border Security Force (BSF) team closed in on Kotli village. The...

RAJOURI (JAMMU), APRIL 30: It was three in the morning on April 20 when a Border Security Force (BSF) team closed in on Kotli village. The word spread. Men and children ran to the nearby forest, women and the elderly stayed back.

The team went straight to Mohd Ashraf’s house. He was missing but he had left his 35-year-old wife Fazel Begum home to face the wrath of the forces. She feigned innocence. But three long hours of sustained interrogation later, she led them to the arms — 28kg of RDX, two prepared Improvised Explosive Devices (IED), six Russian hand grenades, 12 remote-control devices, two wireless sets and a large number of ammunition for Picca and AK series guns.

In less than three weeks, the security forces in this region have seized about 600 kg of RDX, 200 82 mm and 105 mm bombs, 108 solar-propelled rockets, 25 Chinese-made Picca guns and sniper guns, 30 unique flame-throwers, 50 RPG rockets, hundreds of hand and rifle grenades and one anti-aircraft missile.

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These weapons were stashed in hollow cemented walls, hidden basements and Syntex water tanks buried under the cultivated land. Brigadier Tara Singh, who commands Rashtriya Rifles in Surankot area, told The Indian Express: “I had only seen it in movies so far. In one of our operations in Surankot, we recovered weapons from a cemented wall. It was hollow from inside and when we broke it open, it was like cabinet decorated with arms.”

In Fazel Begum’s case, the weapons were recovered from the field. Two water tanks were dug out. The tanks were carrying five bags wrapped in plastic sheets. She told The Indian Express that some militants had come in January and forced them to hide the weapons in their fields.

Ex-serviceman Abdul Rehman alleges that he was innocent and he hid the militants’ weapons at gunpoint. “There was a book shelf in his room. When we hit the lower shelf with the gun, it broke open and led us to a hidden basement. In the basement, there was a bulb point and a TV set. It appears that the militants used to spend a lot of time here,” BSF’s DIG (Operation) B S Shekhavat said.

Most of the weapons have been seized from the eastern belt of Rajouri, which provides the only road-link with Poonch. It was feared that if the militants had used these `seized’ arms, they were enough to cut off the road-link with the bordering town Poonch.

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Major General V S Yadav, who heads 25 Battalion manning the Line of Control, says the weapons might have come from the international border. “These villagers may become conduits, because the militants threat to kill their families, if they do not cooperate,” Yadav says.

According to the security forces, the large cache of arms also indicates that the arch of militancy has descended from the Srinagar valley to the Jammu region. It is substantiated by the facts that as many as 100 militants were either killed or apprehended in this region since March.