SRINAGAR, NEW DELHI, JUNE 22: In what is the first such arrest in the 18 years of militancy in the Valley, the Jammu and Kashmir police have picked up Shahzad Khan, a militant commander who they believe was a Captain in the Pakistan Army and served in the Kargil war before he moved across along with a group of militants in the spring of 2001.

Khan is being detained in an undisclosed location in Kashmir.

Although the top brass of the J-K Police deny the arrest, sources in security agencies have confirmed to The Indian Express that the former Pak Army officer was arrested from Batapora locality and has gone through “sustained interrogation” in police custody.

Khan, sources said, was in active combat during the Kargil war in 1999 when he was serving as a Second Lieutenant.

Sources in New Delhi said that Khan claims links with a “very influential, political family” in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. And has also claimed to interrogators that he is related to Lt-General Mohammad Aziz, a trusted aide of General Pervez Musharraf, who was closely involved in the Kargil war as his Chief of General Staff.

The veracity of these claims has not been confirmed yet.

Sources said the former officer had been operating with a militant group in Kashmir since 2001 and had spent most of his time in the Valley shuttling between frontier Kupwara, Baramulla and Bandipore districts.

Khan is said to have been on his way to a new “hideout” after moving out from a “secure base” in the Bandipore forests when he was arrested.

Security agencies are also in the process of checking the circumstances in which the officer left the Pak Army — whether he was a “deserter” or whether he quit the service to join the militant group.