Jammu, Aug 28 (PTI): He panicked and begged for mercy after army commandos fired ‘chilly grenades’ and teargas shells into a cave to flush out the terrorists who were holed up there since last night.

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

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 army detected the infiltration and was hunting for them in Rafiabad area of Kashmir.

After crossing over from PoK in a place over 100 kms north of here, the five Lashker-e-Taiba militants made several attempts to breach the tight cordon placed along the LoC, army officials said.

Giving details, senior officials said Army’s technical intelligence had picked up signals about a group trying to infiltrate through this area during the night of August 25-26.

A cordon was laid and one of the militant was killed yesterday in an encounter. However, there was no whereabouts of the remaining terrorists, the officials said.

When the operation was being called off, a reluctant Army Major insisted that the terrorists were still on 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 Lashker militants were killed.

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

After sometime, troops entered the cave and found Sajjad weeping bitterly — one because of panic and secondly because of the effect of chilly grenades.

He was immediately arrested and sent to Joint Interrogation Centre in Srinagar for thorough questioning.