The Indian Army on Thursday foiled an infiltration attempt by killing three men near the Line of Control in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla district, PTI reported citing an official.

“We noticed some suspicious movement in the Hathlanga area near the Line of Control,” Lieutenant General DP Pandey, the General Officer Commanding of the Army’s 15 Corps unit, told reporters. “The infiltrators were challenged and three of them were killed.”

Pandey said that a large cache of arms and ammunition, including five assault rifles, seven pistols and grenades, were recovered during the operation.

The Indian Army has been conducting a search operation for the last four days in Uri sector since detecting “suspicious movement” along the Line of Control on September 18.

The operation coincided with the fifth anniversary of the attack in Uri in 2016 in which 19 Indian soldiers were killed.

An official had said that one soldier was injured during a gunfight with suspected militants in the recent infiltration attempt. The official had said that four to six militants might have fled to Pakistan and two were probably hiding in Uri’s Gohalan area.

Defence spokesperson Colonel Emron Musavi said that the condition of the injured solider is stable, reported The Kashmir Walla.

Earlier, Pandey had said that two infiltration attempts along the Line of Control have been reported this year. One of foiled attempts took place in Bandipora district and another one in Uri is being looked into, according to the lieutenant general.

Last year, the Union Ministry for Home Affairs had said that cross-border infiltration continued but such attempts have decreased.

“In 2019, 219 infiltration attempts [were made], with 40% success with 141 successful infiltrations,” the ministry had told the Lok Sabha. “In 2020, up to July, 47 attempts were made to infiltrate, while success has been 20%.”

In 2019, security agencies had identified more than 20 entry routes for infiltration along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.