Two patrolmen, who took the first volley of bullets, died instantly. The rest lost no time in overpowering the driver and the passenger who sat next to him. The duo was dragged out of the truck and thrashed. When the beating stopped and it was assumed that the targets were immobilized, one of them tried to scamper away, but a single bullet aimed at his knee broke his run.

Just as the patrolmen were about to drive away, with their two captives seated in the back of their armoured wagon, a deafening explosion made the vehicle jump in the air and turn turtle. A hand grenade had landed a few feet away from the wagon. Moments later, the patrolmen somehow made their way out of the vehicle and took positions around it to deal with the new aggressor.

One of the patrolmen, the team leader, Inspector Sumer Singh, took out a megaphone to communicate with the aggressor.

‘Scoundrel … Whoever you are, wherever you are hiding, this is the first and final warning. Come out of the truck with your hands raised. Or die.’

The warning drew a volley of gunshots from the truck, which was loaded with bales of hay.

Singh fired five shots from his service pistol even as his team members also fired their AK-47s at the bundles of dry hay, which went up in flames.

‘Come out, coward, your death awaits you,’ Singh shouted.

A man clad in a white kurta-pyjama, with a black shawl draped around his shoulders, jumped out of the back of the truck, holding a Kalashnikov above his head. Two patrolmen jumped on him and pinned him down, raining blows on him. The automatic rifle, with a capacity to fire up to eighty rounds per minute, a favourite of Pakistan-sponsored terrorists as well as Indian security personnel, was quickly taken off him.

‘Shine the torch on this rascal’s face … let’s see who he is,’ Singh instructed one of his men.

The beam revealed an angry-looking, fair-skinned boy with burning eyes and barely any facial hair, who could not have been a day older than fifteen. Singh was stumped. He had never seen such a young killer sent across by the ISI.

‘Oye, uha seraph ik ladka hai. He is just a boy. A killer boy! Twada nama ki haiga? Singh said.

‘Jigar Singh.’

‘Jigar Singh? What’s your age?’

‘Fifteen years, two months.’

‘You three are terrorists? The Pakistani army and the ISI sent you here in the dead of night! We are asleep here?’ Singh asked.

‘No, I am an Indian. Those men you caught are my uncles, they are local farmers.’

‘Farmers? AK-47s grow in your fields, is it? Come to the police station. Your uncles as well as your father will talk there.’

The police wagon left for the station. By then, an ambulance had arrived, and the paramedics were taking out stretchers to carry the two men to the district hospital.