The Indian army has started inducting the new sniper rifles on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. The army floated tenders for purchasing 5,719 sniper rifles from global vendors in January this year under the special financial powers conferred on the General Officer Commander-in-chief of Northern Command. Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, General Officer Commanding in Chief (GoC-in-C) said “We have been able to commence the induction of the new sniper rifles (along LoC with Pakistan) and some more are still in the pipeline”. He added that army has started inducting 5,719 sniper rifles that will replace Soviet era Dragonov SVD. He said some of this military equipment has been received and some probably would come in the next few months. He said upgradation of weaponry is an ongoing exercise and “other equipments which enhances our counter terrorism capability is also being inducted. The capability building is in the pipeline”.

 

 

 

 

According to the reports, the army men guarding LOC have been armed with new sniper rifles including anti-material rifle that can pierce concrete and metals like vehicles. The rifle given to the soldiers are the .338 Lapua Magnum Scorpio TGT by Beretta, and the .50 Calibre M95 by Barrett that replace the Russian Dragunov, which is mostly used by the Indian soldiers. The US-made Barrett M95 is an anti-material rifle which has a whopping range of 1,800 metres. The other guns that will be given to the troops along the LOC are the Victrix Armaments .338 Lapua Magnum Scorpio TGT, owned by Italian firm Beretta and the Scorpio TGT uses the .338 Lapua Magnum, a rimless, bottlenecked, centre-fire rifle cartridge.