New Delhi, July 26: The army today said three soldiers from one of its units in Kashmir were being interrogated and would face a court of inquiry on charges of collaborating with militants.

The development has immediately sparked speculation that terrorists have infiltrated the armed forces because it comes within days of national security adviser M.K. Narayanan’s publicised concern that the air force has been infiltrated.

But the charge that soldiers are being suspected to have had some links with militants has also cast a shadow on the composition of some of the army’s battalions of mixed ethnicities.

The concern comes because the army was against a religion-based census of its composition after a committee this year asked for the number of Muslims among the force’s officer cadre and other ranks.

The three soldiers who are being interrogated are from one such mixed regiment, the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry (JAKLI).

One source said the three were being investigated on tip-offs after a joint raid by the army and Jammu and Kashmir police on June 15 on a village near Rajouri.

Two “overground workers” of the Lashkar-e-Toiba were picked up in the raid. During interrogation, they were said to have given the names of three soldiers ? a sepoy, a naik and a lance naik (Abdul Haq, Mohammed Sharif and Mohammed Shakeel) of the JAKLI.

The army authorities suspect that the families of these soldiers gave shelter and succour to LeT activists under duress. The militants were threatening the families and holding the soldiers to ransom.

The soldiers are suspected to have facilitated a supply of batteries and dry rations for the militants.

The JAKLI is one of the regiments of the army that draws recruits from the state who are Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Unlike most infantry regiments, the JAKLI is not all-Hindu.

The BJP took up the issue of suspected militant infiltration into the armed forces today. The deputy leader of the BJP in the Lok Sabha, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, alleged that the government had enabled “jihadi” infiltration into the armed forces through a special recruitment drive for minorities.

“There have been reports of LeT’s infiltration into the Indian Air Force and about terrorists joining the army. These things have happened because the government has given a go-ahead to jihadis to join the armed forces by allowing a recruitment drive for minorities in the military,” he said.