Army personnel at the site of an encounter in Kupwara. File photo

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 21

Two more militants and a soldier were killed on the second day of a gunfight today in the remote Nowgam sector in north Kashmir, where the Army had on Saturday intercepted a group of infiltrating ultras, taking the death toll to seven.A defence spokesman said two more militants and a soldier were killed on the second day of fighting in the Nowgam sector, 120 km from Srinagar. Two militants and two soldiers were killed in the gunfight on the first day of fighting on Saturday, following which the operation against militants was halted for a night as soldiers cordoned off the forest area.“Four terrorists have been killed while three soldiers attained martyrdom,” a defence spokesman said about the operation. The spokesman said four weapons and “other war-like stores” were recovered from the site while the identities of the militants and their group affiliations were being ascertained.The spokesman said a sanitisation operation was underway in the area, indicating the gunfight was over and the militant group had been neutralised.The gunfight had erupted when the Army had intercepted the militants who were infiltrating into the Kashmir valley. The Nowgam sector is located in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district and is situated along the mountainous stretches of the Line of Control (LoC).This was the second major infiltration bid foiled by the Army in the past two months and came just a day after Defence Minister Arun Jaitley visited forward areas where he vowed an adequate response to ceasefire violations.Last month, four militants were killed by the Army close to the LoC in Kupwara district. The two foiled infiltration attempts in north Kashmir have come at a time when militants operating in south Kashmir are mounting intense pressure on the security grid.The security agencies estimate that 250 to 300 militants are operating in the Valley, a bulk of them in south Kashmir’s four districts where the local component of the militancy is dominant. In north Kashmir, foreign militants are believed to outnumber the local militants.