SRINAGAR, India (AFP) — Indian troops have killed four Islamic militants in two separate clashes in Kashmir, one along the ceasefire line dividing the state between India and Pakistan, the army said Friday.
The fighting came a day after four Pakistani soldiers were killed in an exchange of fire with unknown attackers along the de facto border.
"Three of the militants were killed along the Line of Control (LOC) in (northern) Kupwara district late Thursday," an army statement said.
It said the rebels were trying to infiltrate into Indian Kashmir from the Pakistani-zone of the divided state.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and funding militants, who launched an insurgency in Indian Kashmir in 1989. Islamabad denies the charge.
Soldiers also killed a senior commander of the hardline militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba in the neighbouring Baramulla district early Friday, the statement said, identifying the slain rebel as Mehboob Ahmed alias Abu Tahir.
The insurgency in the Indian-controlled part of Muslim-majority Kashmir has left more than 43,000 people dead since it started in 1989.
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