Srinagar:
Three militants holed up in a house were killed by security forces in Shopian district of Kashmir as the overnight encounter in which a Major and a soldier lost their lives ended on Friday morning.
Bodies of the three militants have been recovered and operation has now been called off, a senior police official said.
The official said while two militants were killed last evening, the third one put up a stiff resistance.
"The third militant started firing again this morning and was killed around 9.15 am," he added.
An army officer, Major Mukund Varadarajan, and a soldier were killed while fighting the militants.
Some arms and ammunition were also recovered from the scene of the encounter, he said.
Security forces launched a search operation in Karewa Malino in Shopian, 55 km from here, on Friday evening following information about presence of three militants - two locals and one foreigner.
The militants were asked to surrender but they resorted to firing, triggering the gunfight.
The identity of the slain militants could not be ascertained immediately.
Shopian is part of the Anantnag Parliamentary constituency and the encounter took place a day after militants carried out an attack on a polling party escorted by police and CRPF in the district at the end of the voting on Thursday.
One polling officer was killed while five others including three security personnel were injured in the incident.
Meanwhile, a police spokesman said all the three slain militants were locals and affiliated to the banned terror outfit, Hizb-ul Mujahideen.
"The militants belonged to Hizb-ul Mujahideen and have been identified as Asif Ahmad Wani of Drabgam-Rajpora, Shabir Ahmad Gorsi of Regward-Keller, and Abdul Haq Malik of Arwani, Bijbehara," the spokesman said.
He said these militants were involved in number of militancy-related incidents.
"Asif was formerly a Jaish-e-Mohammad militant who had joined Hizb outfit. He was district commander of the outfit.
Malik was involved in the killing of a policeman in Arwani area last year," he added.