NEW DELHI: Even as 2025 witnessed two deadly terror attacks – Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir and Red Fort in Delhi – the year also has the distinction of having the highest number of arms, ammunition, IEDs and explosive seizures.
The government data shows that AK-series weapon recoveries, a key firearm used by militants, increased more than threefold in 2025. After remaining in low double digits for several years, AK-series seizures rose from 13 in 2024 to 40 in 2025, the highest recovery since 2020, pointing towards renewed attempts by terror modules to create troubles with military-grade assault rifles in the country, official sources said.
The Border Security Force (BSF), which guards India’s borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh, has compiled the data and shared with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the sources said, adding that the trend showed that the country’s adversaries have continuously been planning to push arms and making concerted efforts to create war-like arms store on India’s soil.
The five-year data revealed that AK-series weapons, ammunition-linked material, IED components and explosives have risen sharply till November 30, 2025, which showed a serious escalation in the past as many years, they said.
It is to be noted that in Pahalgam, terrorists targeted civilians and security personnel with AK-series weapons, and this showed how their operational capability has gone up. Later in the Delhi blast, which jolted the National Capital and the country as a whole, terrorists used an IED, which further exposed the vulnerability of urban centres with such explosives.
Investigators in both cases pointed to the use of locally assembled explosives and sophisticated weapons, trends that closely mirror the surge seen in border recoveries, sources in the security agencies said.
According to the official sources, the data established the fact that terrorists' ability to strike has gone up with the high number of AK-series weapons in 2025, which has gone up threefold, the highest since 2020. This pointed towards a renewed push to arm terror modules with military-grade assault rifles.
Besides, AK-series weapons, recoveries of assorted magazines (MAG), essential for sustaining automatic fire, have also gone up from 187 in 2024 to 1,127 in 2025, a nearly six-fold increase, they said, adding that this surge indicates bulk ammunition supply chains, rather than sporadic smuggling attempts.
The increase in the capacity of terrorists in IED making is also indicated with the seizures of detonators, which jumped 220 in 2024 to 804 in 2025, registering a 265 per cent year-on-year hike, they said, adding that while IED and IED-component recoveries remained in single digits annually between 2020 and 2022.
The escalation is further reflected in explosive seizures, which reached their highest level in the five-year period. The data showed explosive recoveries rising from 11.815 kg in 2024 to 25.715 kg in 2025, which was more than double.
Even the seizure of wireless sets, which are used for coordination and command, also showed an upward trend. It increased from 56 wireless sets in 2024 to 69 in 2025.
