A "Chinese-made" weapon-mountable telescope was found by police on Sunday in the Sidhra region of Jammu and Kashmir, according to officials.
A police spokesperson warned locals "not to panic" as they reported that "Jammu (Rural) Police today recovered a telescope (that can be mounted on a weapon) from the Sidhra area."
A six-year-old youngster from the Sidhra neighborhood of Asrarabad was caught in possession of the device, according to the police.
The child's relatives informed police during the investigation that he had picked up the item earlier on Sunday from a nearby landfill.
According to the spokeswoman, teams from the police and Special Operations Group (SOG) are carrying out a thorough investigation to ascertain how the device got to the location.
In the Samba district of J&K, police detained a 24-year-old man for interrogation, according to news agency PTI. In a further development, authorities said that Tanvir Ahmad, a resident of the village of Diani in the Samba area, was arrested when a "Pakistani" phone number was allegedly discovered on his cell phone. Officials claim that Ahmad, a native of Anantnag in south Kashmir, is currently residing in Samba.
In a different incident on Sunday, security personnel conducted a search in the Udhampur region of Jammu and Kashmir after militants allegedly stole food from a village home before escaping into a nearby forest.
Soon after, police and paramilitary troops raced to the scene, but by the time they got there, the terrorists had already fled. The village's surrounding woodland belt was closed off after the tragedy, and search efforts were stepped up.
The operation follows a deadly encounter in the same area on December 15, when security forces received intelligence about the movement of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorists and a policeman was murdered in a gunfight with terrorists at Soan village in the Majalta area. Taking advantage of the darkness and dense vegetation, the terrorists were able to flee, according to PTI.
