Jammu: Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel will soon get American Sig Sauer assault rifles and pistols to carry out counter-insurgency operations. The officers provided this information.
The Army has already equipped its soldiers guarding the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan and the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China with state-of-the-art rifles.
Stating that the Jammu and Kashmir Police is probably the first in the country to have got modern weapons, he added that the force will procure 500 Sig Sauer-716 rifles and 100 Sig Sauer MPX 9mm pistols.
He said the Special Operations Group (SOG) and personnel deployed for the protection of the guards would be equipped with weapons.
According to officials, the Jammu and Kashmir Police had recently floated global bids for the purchase of assault weapons on the government procurement portal GeM (Government e-Market).
Officials said the Sig Sauer-716 assault rifle has a more powerful 7.62x51mm cartridge than the 5.56x45mm intermediate cartridge of the INSAS (Indian Small Arms System) rifle used by the police.
Weighing 3.82 kg without a magazine, the rifle fires at a cyclic rate of 650-850 rounds per minute and can prove to be an effective weapon in anti-terrorist operations due to its range of 500 meters, he said.
In addition, the rifles are compact, sturdy, modern and easy to maintain in field conditions, he said.
Similarly, without a magazine weighing 2.94 kg, the SIG MPX 9 mm pistol fires at a rotational speed of 850 rounds per minute, he said.
He said that both the weapons are gas-powered. He said the induction of these assault rifles would help the police work more effectively in dealing with terrorists.
In 2019, India signed a contract with Sig Sauer for 72,400 assault rifles at a cost of around Rs 700 crore.
In October 2017, the Army began the process of acquiring around 7 lakh rifles, 44,000 light machine guns and around 44,600 carbines.- (PTI)
