Three suspected militants were killed in Tral’s Satora village in Jammu and Kashmir in an encounter with security forces on Saturday, ANI reported. One other suspected militant was reported to be hiding inside a cave on a nearby hillock. Earlier, the police had recovered the body of one of the the militants killed.

Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police SP Vaid said the encounter was still on. “There was an input about a couple of militants in that area. The exact outfit is not known but most probably they are foreign militants. It must be Jaish-e-Mohammed,” he said.

The encounter broke out in Tral – about 36 km from Srinagar – at around 8 am on Saturday. Security forces launched a search operation on receiving information that they were holed up in the Wantiwen forests of Satora village.

An official told Greater Kashmir that the militants, who have yet to be identified, belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit.

Another senior officer said the search operation, which was conducted jointly by the Jammu and Kashmir Police’s Special Operations Group, the Indian Army’s 42 Rashtriya Rifles and troops of the Central Reserve Police Force, turned into an encounter after the militants opened fire on them.