SRINAGAR: Government forces in Indian Kashmir killed three suspected rebels Tuesday during a lengthy gunbattle, police said, in the latest flare-up ahead of tense local elections later this year.

The fighting began early in the day as troops were responding to a tip about militants hiding in a house in southern Rajpora village, said Indian paramilitary officer O.S. Charak.

Soldiers cordoned off the house, some 40 km south of the main city of Srinagar, on Monday evening, a police officer said.

The troops shouted for the militants to surrender and opened fire when they refused, sparking a gun battle that lasted several hours and left three militants dead, Charak said. There were no casualties among the Indian forces, and no immediate statement from any of the rebel groups fighting against Indian rule since 1989.

As the fighting raged, hundreds of villagers tried to stage an anti-India protest march to the site of the gunbattle but were held back, an officer said on customary condition of anonymity.

The villagers hurled stones and chanted slogans including “Go India, go back” and “We want freedom,” while the troops and police retaliated by firing tear gas and bullets into the air in an effort to disperse the crowd. No injuries were reported from those clashes, which occurred near the village, about 40km south of the region’s main city of Srinagar.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, with both partially administering it separately, since the two nations won independence from Britain in 1947.