4 militants killed in Kashmir following gun battle with Indian security forces

At least four suspected militants have been killed and four members of India’s security forces injured, following a heated gun battle in the Pulwama district of Kashmir in the early hours of Monday morning.

The exchange of fire erupted as members of India’s army, paramilitaries, and the special operations group of the Jammu & Kashmir police force conducted a cordon-and-search-operation following a tip-off, according to local media. The wounded were evacuated and taken to hospital, and are now in a stable condition.

“As the cordon was tightened, the militants fired at the forces, triggering a fierce gunfight in which four ultras were neutralized,” a police official said. He added that the dead militants were believed to be members of the Pakistan-based Islamist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and security personnel was working to identify the dead members.

Indian forces also found stockpiles of ammunition and weapons at the contact site in what Army Colonel Rajesh Kalia described as “warlike stores.”

The incident is the latest in a series of exchanges between Islamist militants and Indian security forces in the disputed territory this year, which so far has claimed the lives of 57 members of India’s security forces. 63 militants were also killed. In February, a suicide bomb attack on an Indian paramilitary convoy killed dozens of paramilitary police. This prompted a dramatic flare-up in tensions between New Delhi and neighboring Pakistan, whom India accuses of not doing enough to dissuade the militants from launching attacks.

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