Abu Talha was arrested by Jammu & Kashmir police late on Thursday from a home at Chatabal area here. He had managed to escape during Wednesday's attack at the CRPF camp in which five jawans were killed and several others injured.

Police said Abu Talha is from Multan in Pakistan's Punjab province and was heading a group of 12-odd fidayeen who had infiltrated into Kashmir from Uri sector within days of Guru's hanging in Tihar jail on February 9.

Abu Talha has revealed that several local Kashmiri boys mainly from Uri and Pattan area in north Kashmir helped in ferrying the fidayeen attackers to Srinagar and arranged for their stay in Chatabal locality in the house of one Ghulam Nabi Dar, who is visually challenged. The area is barely two km from the CRPF camp, the target of the attack.

The interrogators said that Abu Talha had reached Srinagar two days before the attack with two Kashmiri boys and receed the CRPF camp in Bemina area. He told his interrogators that the two fidayeen attackers, who were killed during the gunfight, reached Srinagar on Tuesday. On the day of the attack, Abu Talha dropped the duo near the gate of the CRPF camp.

"Abu Talha received instructions from his Pakistani handlers on his mobile phone, procured from the Kashmiri boys, not to participate in the Bemina attack and that he would be tasked for another fidayeen attack," the interrogators said. Police are now analysing his call details and looking for the locals from whom Abu Talha procured his sim card.

Abu Talha managed to escape during the search operation inside the camp by opening fire to divert the attention of the CRPF men who were mostly without weapons as part of the recently adopted standard operating procedure, they said.

Police and CRPF men are now conducting search operations at various places as hunt is on for the remaining six militants and the two local youths who provided logistical support, a senior intelligence officer said.

Meanwhile Life in the Kashmir Valley remained paralyzed for second consecutive day in view of the curfew imposed by the authorities soon after Wednesday's attack and subsequent killing of a youth, Altaf Hussian, in CRPF firing.

In the wake of the terror attack, the Congress ministers in the Omar Abdullah government have asked the chief minister to review the standard operating procedures and restore weapons to the security forces even when they are on policing duty.

"What is this SOP when our security men are reduced to being sitting ducks and how can they defend the lives of the common people? It's unfortunate that our security men and police have become inert due to the SOP when militancy still exists in Kashmir valley," said Sham Lal Sharma, a minister in Omar's cabinet.