(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Eleven people were killed in heavy firing between the security forces and infiltrators in Jammu and Kashmir which restarted last morning. The gunfight has now ended, ahead of prime minister's visit to the state, officials said.
A group of heavily armed militants sneaked into the Indian side of the border from Pakistan on Thursday.
The gunbattle started at Arnia in Jammu district and resumed yesterday morning after a lull.
"Searches in the area had to be stopped after heavy firing exchanges started again at the site in the morning," a senior army officer said.
A total of 10 people were dead on Thursday, but after searches in the area, another body was recovered yesterday and the toll mounted to 11.
Officials said four civilians, three soldiers and four militants were killed in the fierce gunfight.
"Another dead body has been recovered during yesterday's searches," the officer said.
"The toll has risen to 11... So far, four civilians, three soldiers and four militants have been killed," the officer added.
The civilians were killed in the crossfire during the attack which started early in the morning, local deputy inspector general of police Shakeel Beig said.
The rebels, suspected to have crossed from Pakistan, entered an "abandoned bunker" which Indian forces then surrounded, triggering the gun battle.
Beig had earlier said "four to six militants" were firing from inside the bunker.
Sources said the lone surviving militant was presumed to be firing from an abandoned army bunker in Pind Khote village of the R S Pura area. Police said they destroyed the abandoned bunker.
The firing has stopped and searches are underway, the officer said.
The attack came as Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif shook hands but failed to hold a formal meeting at the just-ended summit in Kathmandu, in signs of growing mutual distrust.
Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since independence from Britain over Kashmir. The picturesque region is held in part by Pakistan and India, but claimed in full by both.
Analysts say India has taken a more assertive stance against its neighbour since Modi's Hindu nationalist party stormed to power in May.
The attack comes a day before Modi is expected to address a campaign rally in the nearby town of Udhampur for ongoing elections in the Himalayan region.
Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is striving to win power in the Muslim-majority region for the first time.
Earlier, the region's chief minister, Omar Abdullah, expressed his condolences over the first soldier's death, while pointing to the timing of the attack.
"The timing of the attack in Arnia can't be a coincidence. My condolences to the family of the army officer killed in Arnia," Abdullah said on Twitter.
In October the area was the site of some of the heaviest exchanges of mortar firing between Indian and Pakistani forces in years, when 20 civilians were killed and dozens injured on both sides.
Since 1989 fighting between about a dozen rebel groups, seeking independence or a merger of the territory with Pakistan, and Indian forces has left tens of thousands dead, most of them civilians.
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