India admits killing two suspected militants

The Indian army said it killed two suspected Islamic militants after they crossed into Indian-controlled Kashmir from Pakistan…

The Indian army said it killed two suspected Islamic militants after they crossed into Indian-controlled Kashmir from Pakistan in the second such incident in three days.

The two men were shot dead during an exchange of gunfire 400 metres from the line of control that divides disputed Kashmir between the South Asian neighbours, said an army spokesman.

The gunbattle was preceded by shelling from the Pakistani side in the frontier village of Keran, nearly 130 kilometres north of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir state.

India's army said it killed three Muslim militants on Saturday after they crossed from Pakistan into India-controlled Kashmir in the first such incursion in a month.

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Islamabad denied the militants came from its territory.

A series of cross-border attacks by the Pakistan-based militants led India to deploy hundreds of thousands of troops along the border and there were fears last month of a third war between the two nuclear-armed neighbours over the region.

More than a dozen militant groups have been fighting for Kashmir's independence from India or its merger with Pakistan in a 12-year insurgency, that has killed more than 60,000 people.

PA