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SRINAGAR: Two Indian soldiers and a suspected militant have been killed in one of longest gunfights in Indian-administered Kashmir, officials said Saturday.

The fighting began on Aug. 1 after Indian troops laid a cordon in southern Kulgam district’s Akhal forested area following a tip that a group of insurgents was operating there, officials said.

Multiple search operations in the area by soldiers triggered a series of firefights with militants, initially leaving one militant dead and seven soldiers wounded, officials said. Since then, intermittent fighting continued in the area as troops deployed helicopters and drones to combat an unspecified number of militants in the vast, forested area.

According to officials, two army soldiers were killed and two others injured on the eighth day, late Friday.

The Indian army in a statement on social media said the operation continued in the area on Saturday.

Officials did not give any other details. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify the details.

Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. Militants in the Indian-administered portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

India insists the Kashmir militancy is “Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.” Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.

Last month, India’s powerful home minister Amit Shah said in parliament that three suspected militants killed in a gunbattle in the disputed region were responsible for a shooting massacre in which more than two dozen people died and that led to a military clash between India and Pakistan earlier this year.

Before the April gun massacre in the Kashmiri resort town of Pahalgam, the fighting had largely ebbed in the region’s Kashmir Valley, the heartland of anti-India rebellion, and mainly shifted to mountainous areas of Jammu in the past few years.

The massacre increased tensions between India and Pakistan, leading to the worst military confrontation in decades and the death of dozens of people, until a ceasefire was reached on May 10 after USmediation.

The region has simmered in anger since New Delhi ended the region’s semi-autonomy in 2019 and drastically curbed dissent, civil liberties and media freedoms while intensifying counterinsurgency operations.

Ahmedabad: Families of the victims of June’s deadly Air India crash demanded on Friday the immediate release of the aircraft’s two flight recorders, saying delays were eroding their trust in the investigation.

A total of 241 people on board the London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner were killed when the plane crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad in western India on June 12.

Another 19 people were killed on the ground.

A preliminary investigation report by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau said fuel to the jet’s engines was cut off moments before impact.

The report did not offer any conclusions or apportion blame for the disaster, but indicated, based on the cockpit voice recording, that one pilot asked the other why he cut off fuel. The second pilot responded that he had not.

“We are formally demanding the immediate release of the Cockpit Voice Recorder and Flight Data Recorder — the black box,” said Imtiaz Ali Sayed, a family member of several victims.

“These devices contain vital information that can reveal the truth behind this horrific tragedy,” he said in a media statement.

Sayed, whose younger brother, his wife and their two children were killed in the crash, said he was speaking on behalf of 60 families “who share the same pain and unanswered questions.”

“Every day without answers deepens the pain of our loss and erodes public trust in aviation safety,” he said.

Some of the families are exploring legal action against Air India and Boeing, the plane’s US manufacturer, their lawyer said.

Mike Andrews of the US-based Beasley Allen Law Firm, representing 65 families from India and Britain, met relatives in Vadodara city, south of Ahmedabad, on Friday after visiting the crash site.

“Suppose the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder indicate that there is a defect with the aircraft... in that case, the options are to bring a defective product or a product liability claim in the United States for those claims,” he told reporters.