India’s army said it shot dead three militants from Pakistan on Sunday following an attack by the gunmen two days earlier on an Indian border post in the disputed Kashmir region.
The militants were killed in the Tanghdar sector of North Kashmir, Lieutenant Colonel Manish Kumar told Reuters, adding that three rifles and military supplies had been recovered from the scene.
Indian troops have killed 103 militants in the restive Kashmir Valley so far this year, the highest toll in recent years. According to an official estimate, 56 militants have crossed into Kashmir this year through July, up from 36 in the same period last year.
India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, its northernmost state of which Kashmir forms a part. A Pakistani government spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment on Sunday, but Islamabad denies any such activities.
Muslim-majority Kashmir has been convulsed by protests since the killing by security forces of a field commander of an Pakistan-based militant outfit on July 8, with at least 65 people killed and 6,000 wounded in clashes with security forces.
India and Pakistan have been engaged in a diplomatic back-and-forth to try to arrange talks between their foreign secretaries but they have yet to agree a date or specify the agenda. India is not willing to discuss the status of the part of Kashmir that it controls.
