Recovery of the armour-piercing bullets from the possession of killed foreign terrorists has added woes to the security forces because first-time such deadly ammunition has been recovered in Jammu province.
Deadly armour-piercing bullets were recovered from two foreign terrorists, believed to be Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) cadre from Pakistan, killed during a suicidal attack on an Army camp at Pargal village in Rajouri district.
Till now such deadly bullets are used by terrorists only in the Kashmir Valley. Made from aluminum metal, these bullets can even penetrate bulletproof vehicles.
Armour-piercing bullets or steel core bullets can breach protection provided against bullets by a certain level of jackets.
300 bullets recovered from killed terrorists
Two AK-47 riffles along with nine magazines and 300 rounds, five grenades, and other "administrative stores" were recovered from the killed terrorists.
Some bullets were colour-coded which was a clear indication that they were armour-piercing bullets that were earlier used by terrorists in Kashmir Valley.
Reports said that terrorists could not properly use armour-piercing bullets during the attack because they failed to go deep into the camp. After a four-hour-long fierce gun battle both the terrorists were neutralized by the soldiers just near the main entrance of the camp.
As reported earlier two terrorists attacked an Army camp at village Pargal, about nine kilometres from Darhal, in Rajouri district of Jammu region on Thursday killing four soldiers including a Subedar, and wounding two others, one of them a Major, before being eliminated by the troops in four-hour long gun battle.
Armour-piercing bullets were abandoned by Americans in Afghanistan
According to defence sources, these bullets have been an important part of the weapons left by the US military in Afghanistan and now this ammunition has reached Jammu and Kashmir.
In March 2022, a self-styled commander of JeM, Vilayat Hussain Lone alias Sajjad Afghani, was killed in an encounter at Shopian. The army had recovered 36 rounds of armed steel-core bullets.
The recoveries had raised alarm bells within the security establishment as these bullets can harm personnel even wearing a regular protective shield.
The ammunition normally used in the AK series rifles was being modified from across the border with the help of Chinese technology of encasing bullets with the hard steel core.
The bullet, termed Armour Piercing (AP), is built of hardened steel or tungsten carbide.
DRDO has already developed a new bulletproof jacket
As reported earlier, the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) has already developed a new lightweight bulletproof jacket (BPJ) for the Indian Army which reportedly offers 360-degree protection from enemy fire to the soldiers deployed in combat. These bulletproof jackets are specially developed to cope with the challenge of "steel bullets"
DRDO claimed that this jacket was developed to counter the challenge the Army faced in Kashmir where the terrorists have lately been using armor-piercing steel core bullets. The DRDO-developed BPJ reportedly offers 360-degree protection from enemy fire to the soldiers deployed in combat.
