Troops and police on Monday killed three alleged militants holed up in a government building in Indian held Kashmir, ending a three-day gunbattle in which five soldiers and a civilian also died, police said. The fighting broke out when freedom fighters ambushed a paramilitary convoy on Saturday, killing two troopers before taking refuge in the building on the outskirts of the occupied Srinagar.

"All the three militants have been killed in the gunbattle. Their bodies have been recovered," the inspector general of police for the region, Javaid Gillani, told AFP. Soldiers and police surrounded it and fired mortar bombs, while the freedom fighters responded with automatic weapons and hand grenades. On Sunday two captains and a special forces soldier were killed as the gunbattle raged. A gardener died in the initial crossfire and 13 members of the Central Reserve Police Force were wounded.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2016