Recovery of hi-tech sniper rifle leaves J&K police worried

The recovery of M4 carbine (assault rifle) from the encounter site in Tral’s Chankitar village on Monday has been a cause of worry for the officials dealing with militancy in Kashmir.

This is the second time when M4 carbine rifle has been recovered in south Kashmir’s encounter site. Last year, in November, police and army after killing three Jaish militants in Pulwama had recovered an M4 carbine colt and an AK-47 Draco rifles from the militants.

Police confirmed that M4 rifle was recovered from the encounter site along with the bodies of two militants – one local and another foreigner – at Tral after a day-long encounter on Tuesday.

The M4 rifle is being also used by the US Forces and is mounted by night vision devices. Officials said that the rifle is actually a sniper rifle and achieves pinpoint target with great accuracy from a distance of 1.5km. “The recovery of M4 weapon is not alarming but it’s a cause of worry for us,” a senior police officer told Hindustan Times.

A J&K police spokesman said that the bodies of two militants were recovered from the site of encounter along with arms and ammunition including M4 and AK-47 rifles. The militants have been identified as Showkat Ahmad Khan of Handoora Tral while the other one is Usman from Pakistan.

The spokesman said both were affiliated with Jaish-e-Mohammad, the group involved in a series of “attacks and firing on the security forces”.

JeM, however, said that Usman Hyder was the nephew of JeM chief Masood Azhar. Jaish even said he was a trained sniper heading the squad of snipers.

However, police said they are still verifying the claims whether Usman is actually related to Azhar Masood.

Militant outfit JeM claimed the use of sniper rifles in attacks launched by them in Srinagar and south Kashmir in last two weeks. When first M4 rifle was recovered in November last year, major general BS Raju, the then general officer commanding (GOC) of the Army’s Victor Force, had said that there could be 5–10 such weapons brought in by infiltrating militants.