Azhar, who had used a Portuguese passport to enter India through Bangladesh and reach Kashmir, was arrested in February 1994 in Anantnag in South Kashmir. 

In custody, intelligence agencies did not have to do much work on Azhar who started speaking after the first slap from an army officer and gave deep insights into the functioning of terror groups operating from Pakistan, the officer said. 

"He was an easy man to handle and a slap from an army officer had shaken him completely," former Director General of Sikkim Police Avinash Mohananey, who interrogated Azhar many a times during his two-decade tenure in the Intelligence Bureau, told PTI. 

After his release in exchange of passengers of hijacked IC-814 flight of Indian Airlines in 1999 by the then BJP government, Azhar formed Jaish-e-Mohammed and scripted many audacious terror strikes in India, including on the Parliament House, Pathankot air force base, army camps in Jammu and Uri, and the latest suicide attack on CRPF in Pulwama which claimed the lives of 40 personnel. 

While in custody, Azhar, in his early 50's now, shared information about recruitment process and functioning of terror groups in Pakistan at a time when the intelligence agencies were still grappling to understand the proxy-war unleashed by Pakistan's espionage agency ISI, said Mohananey, a 1985-batch IPS officer who headed the Kashmir desk in the agency at that time. "There were several occasions when I met him in Kot Balwal jail and interrogated him for hours together. We did not have to use any coercive method as information flowed consistently from him," he said. Azhar gave the Indian agencies vital insights into diversion of Afghan terrorists into Kashmir Valley and merger of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami (HuJI) into Harkat-ul-Ansar, represented by him as its general secretary, he said. After his arrival into India from Bangladesh in 1994, Azhar had travelled to Saharanpur before reaching Kashmir where he held meetings of warring factions of HuM and HuJI to formulate a common policy, Mohananey said. "I came on a forged Portuguese passport for ensuring that HuM and HuJI are together in the valley. It was not possible for me to cross the Line of Control on foot," the police officer recalled Azhar telling them. A man of mannerism and etiquette during questioning sessions, Azhar used to give a detailed description to any question that was asked to him, he said.  Mohananey recalled that Azhar would often boast that police could not keep him in custody for long as he was important for Pakistan and the ISI. "You are underestimating my popularity. The ISI would ensure that I am back in Pakistan," the police officer recalled him as saying.