[Dawn] Two militants and an Indian soldier were killed during a gunbattle along the border that splits Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the Indian military said Sunday. 'The fighting erupted late Saturday when a group of militants tried to cross the Line of Control in (southern) Poonch district,' an army spokesman said, referring to the de facto border.'Soldiers foiled an infiltration bid by killing two militants,' the spokesman said, adding a soldier also died during the fighting.
The latest clash came as regional police chief Kuldeep Khuda told reporters late Saturday that about 700 militants were active in Kashmir. Khuda said the number of active militants included people who had earlier surrendered to troops. 'But their number is negligible,' he said, adding that 2009 was likely to end with the lowest 'ever incidents of violence' since 1989.
Overall in the state, the number of insurgency-related deaths has fallen to around one daily from a peak of 10 in 2001. The fall in violence comes against the backdrop of a slow-moving peace process between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to settle the future of the disputed region, which both claim in its entirety. India paused the dialogue after last November's Mumbai attacks, in which 166 people were killed in a three-day rampage by gunmen.