SRINAGAR: India’s army killed three suspected rebels on Friday in Kashmir during a gunbattle near the

de facto border that divides the restive territory between India and Pakistan, police said.

Soldiers confronted a group of armed men in a forested area in Uri, 100 km northwest of the main city of Srinagar, triggering the shoot-out, Javid Gillani, inspector general of police, said.

“Our information is that three militants were killed and another was injured in the encounter. One more (militant) is believed to be still in the area,” Gillani told AFP.

Two soldiers were also injured during the exchange of fire, he said. Another police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the group of five had crossed the electrified fence along the border, called the Line of Control, from Pakistan the previous night.

Since 1989, several rebel groups have been fighting hundreds of thousands of Indian government forces deployed in the Himalayan region for independence or a merger of the territory with Pakistan.

The fighting has left tens of thousands, mostly civilians, dead.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the two won independence from Britain in 1947. Both claim the disputed territory in full.

India often accuses Pakistan of arming and pushing rebels across into the Indian side, a charge Islamabad denies.

Meanwhile, thousands of Hindus began trekking along icy trails to reach a cave temple high in the mountains of India’s restive Kashmir amid tight security.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of devout Hindus from India and abroad make the gruelling trek to the Amarnath temple — 3,800 meters (12,800 ft) up in the Himalayas —- to see the natural ice formation Two routes that lead to the cave shrine were heavily protected by soldiers, police and disaster forces as Islamic militants, fighting a separatist war in Indian-administered Kashmir, have attacked pilgrims in the past.