SRINAGAR, India (AP) – Three suspected militants were killed in separate clashes Saturday in Indian controlled Kashmirofficials said Saturday.

India’s army said in a statement that soldiers intercepted a group of militants in a forested area in southern Anantnag district on Saturday, leading to a gun battle that killed two rebels.

In a separate incident in the disputed region’s main city of Srinagar, police and paramilitary soldiers killed a militant in a gunfight after troops cordoned off a neighborhood on a bridge where he was hiding in a house . Police said two soldiers and two policemen were injured in the fighting.

Residents said the troops set fire to the house where the rebel was trapped, a common tactic used by Indian troops in the Himalayan region. There was no independent confirmation of the incident.

India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. The nuclear-armed rivals have fought two of their three wars over the territory since gaining independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

India insists that militancy in Kashmir is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the allegation, and many Kashmiris see it as a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.