The security forces late Thursday night called off its operation against militants who were holed up in caves inside a dense jungle of Jammu and Kashmir's Bhati Dhar near the LoC for eight days and said the ultras may have slipped out.

"The operation has been called off. The possibility of militants having escaped cannot be ruled out," said Defence Spokesman SN Acharya capping the futile search for the militants whom the security forces had engaged in a battle.