An Indian soldier and two suspected militants were killed in Kashmir in two separate gun battles along the de facto border that divides the restive territory between India and Pakistan.

An Indian soldier and two suspected militants were killed in Kashmir in two separate gun battles along the de facto border that divides the restive territory between India and Pakistan, police said Sunday.

The two militants died when a group of suspected armed rebels crossed the border into India and were intercepted by soldiers, triggering a gun battle in Keran, 150 kilometers (90 miles) northwest of Kashmir's main city of Srinagar.

An Indian army soldier was also killed Saturday night in a similar but separate gun battle in the adjacent sector of Tangdhar along the heavily-militarized border, Javaid Gillani, the inspector general of police for the region, told AFP.

The latest gun battles follow a recent uptick in cross border exchanges of heavy fire between Indian and Pakistani troops.

Among them was an attack on an Indian Border Security Force convoy last week in which two border guards and a militant were killed. Another militant was captured.

India said the captured militant confessed to be a Pakistani national but Islamabad has rejected the claim.

Since 1989, several rebel groups have been fighting hundreds of thousands of Indian forces deployed in the region, for independence or a merger of the Himalayan territory with Pakistan.

India often accuses Pakistan of pushing armed militants across the border, a charge Islamabad denies, saying it only provides diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiri people's struggle for the right to self determination.