SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir 

At least three Kashmiri militants were killed in a gunfight with government forces on Sunday in India-administered Kashmir, a top police official said. 

Vijay Kumar, the inspector general of police, told reporters at a news conference that the deceased include two Hizbul Mujahideen militants -- Umar Fayaz Lone, alias Hamaad Khan, and Adil Mir, alias Abu Dujana -- and the third one was Faizan Hamid Bhat of Jaish-e-Muhammad outfit.

The militants were hiding in a residential house in Gulshanpora, Tral area of southern Pulwama district, when government forces surrounded them on Saturday night, Kumar said. He said the trio spurned an offer of surrender and fired at the forces.

In the ensuing gunfight that ended on Sunday afternoon, two militants were killed initially, while the third who had shifted to another house during the fight was killed later.

Kumar said Hamaad was one of the “most wanted” militants, adding detention of several of his family members by the police had led to a spate of tit-for-tat abductions of policemen’s kin by militants in 2018.

Hamad is believed to be a close associate of Burhan Wani, the slain 22-year-old militant commander credited with making militancy popular in the mid 2010s and whose killing in 2016 sparked a six-months-long anti-government revolt.

All three militants hailed from Tral, which is Burhan’s hometown.

This was the second gunfight in 2020.

On Jan. 7, the forces had killed a teenaged militant Zahid Hassan, also affiliated with Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, in Pulwama district. Zahid had joined the militants’ ranks only a week earlier.