Kashmir gun battle 'kills four'

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Two Indian soldiers and two militants have been killed in an overnight gun battle in Indian-administered Kashmir, police say.

They say that the fighting took place south of the summer capital, Srinagar.

It broke out on Tuesday evening after the security forces launched a stop and search operation in a village in the district of Avantipora.

Violence in Kashmir has fallen amid peace moves between India and Pakistan. Talks between them began in 2004.

The BBC's Altaf Hussain in Srinagar says that the latest clash appeared to end on Wednesday morning when guns fell silent after the reported killings of the two militants.

A spokesman for the Lashkar-e-Toiba militant group said that five of its members had been surrounded in the cordoned-off village.

He said that three of them managed to escape, and that six Indian soldiers were killed in the fire fight.

The authorities said four soldiers were also wounded.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in Indian-administered Kashmir since 1989 when an armed insurgency began against Indian rule.