Pakistan supplying Chinese grenades to terrorists: Report
New Delhi : Pakistan is now supplying China-made grenades to the terrorists in Kashmir Valley so that it cannot be blamed for future attacks in India, reported the Hindustan Times.
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.
A most recent grenade attack was reported on Tuesday when a terrorist hurled the bomb at a National Conference election meeting in the Tral area.
On March 7, 2 people were killed and over 30 were injured in a grenade attack at Jammu’s inter-state bus stand.
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.”
Explaining the trend, the officer said, “Earlier, Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF)-manufactured grenades were easily available to all terror groups but the Pakistan Army markings on them exposed the western neighbour’s role in spreading terrorism in the international community. “Now, it uses its agencies and terror groups to smuggle ammunition of Chinese origin, which do not have any Chinese ordnance markings. These are low-intensity but still a grenade causes more damage than a bullet.” The officer added, “The 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.”
