SRINAGAR: Indian soldiers killed four suspected rebels and captured another during a day-long gun battle in India-held Kashmir near the border dividing the region between India and Pakistan, a defence spokesman said Thursday.

Indian soldiers detected the group of suspected militants in Uri, 100 kilometres southwest of India-held Kashmir's main city of Srinagar, on Wednesday morning, triggering a firefight that ended on Thursday afternoon.

“One terrorist was killed yesterday in Uri and three today in the contiguous forest area of Rafiabad,” Indian defence spokesman Colonel N N Joshi said.

“One was captured alive during the operation,” Joshi told AFP.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British colonial rule in 1947, but both claim the Himalayan territory in its entirety.

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 territory with Pakistan. Tens of thousands, mostly civilians, have been killed in the fighting.