He panicked and begged for mercy after Army commandos fired ‘chilli grenades’ and teargas shells into a cave in Rafiabad area of Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir to flush out the terrorists.

Sajjad Ahmed was subsequently arrested and he identified himself as a resident of Muzzafargarh in Punjab province of Pakistan.

The 22-year-old was one of the five terrorists who had crossed over from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and hid in the cave after the Army detected the infiltration and was hunting for them in Rafiabad area in Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir.

After reaching a place over 100 kilometres north from here, the five Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militants made several attempts to breach the tight cordon placed along the Line of Control (LoC), Army officials said.

The realignment of security layers along the LoC was the brainchild of outgoing Corps Commander of 15 Corps, Lt Gen Subrata Saha, who moved to the Army Headquarters for a new assignment.

Giving details, senior officials said the Army’s technical intelligence had picked up signals about a group trying to infiltrate through this area during the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday.

A cordon was laid and one of the militant was killed in an encounter on Wednesday. However, the whereabouts of the remaining terrorists were not known then, the officials said.

When the operation was being called off, an Army major insisted that the terrorists were still in the Indian territory and a crack team of various units was formed for a search operation.

During the operation, a natural cave was found on the heights in Rafiabad, they said. When the forces approached it, they were fired upon and in the ensuing encounter, three more militants were killed.

Apprehending that there could be some more terrorists inside the cave, the troops then fired several rounds of teargas shells and ‘chilli grenades’ inside to flush them out.

After sometime, troops entered the cave and found Sajjad weeping bitterly—because of panic and effect of the grenades. He was immediately arrested and sent for a joint interrogation in Srinagar.