Jammu and Kashmir Police will soon become the first police force in the country to be equipped with American assault rifles and pistols. On the GeM online tender portal, Jammu and Kashmir Police recently published a tender to modernize the police forces in Kashmir Valley. A tender was issued for 500 Sig Sauer-716 rifles and 100 Sig Sauer MPX 9 mm pistols.
The rifle weighs around 3.84 kgs without the magazine and fires at a rate of 650-850 rounds per minute. The new equipment would provide a major boost to anti-terror operations, according to experts. The tenders were issued just days after the J&K Police procured 8,000 new lightweight bulletproof jackets. In addition to that, they have also been equipped with mine-proof vehicles and state-of-the-art drones and CCTV systems to increase security throughout the region.
According to police officials, the acquisition of the latest weapons and gadgets is in line with its effort to provide its personnel with the most up-to-date technology to combat terrorism. ‘Modernisation has been going on for the last few years and it will continue in the future as well. We are getting updated weapons and drones. J&K Police has been upgrading itself for the past few years. However, the most significant was the technical surveillance and technical input generation capability,’ said Vijay Kumar, Inspector General, Kashmir.
In addition to emphasizing the importance of new ammunition for the police, Kumar said, ‘Jammu and Kashmir police have been focussing on tactics and firing skills. It’s the police that gets 75-85 per cent of information about terror groups and terrorists. We use both human intelligence and technical surveillance to get all the information’. In 2019, the Indian government procured the same rifles for use by the Indian army. Around 72,000 rifles were purchased for soldiers posted along the Line of Control and the Line of Actual Control.
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