Indian soldiers in the Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK) killed two suspected fighters on Wednesday, the army said, amid the ongoing campaigning for local elections in the disputed region.

IoK is gearing up for the first local assembly elections in a decade, with voting in the three-phased poll beginning on September 18.

The Indian army said it had “neutralised” the suspected fighters, a term which indicates that they had been killed.

The clashes took place Kathua, in the territory’s southern district of Jammu, which is majority Hindu.

About 500,000 Indian troops are deployed in the region, battling a 35-year insurgency that has killed tens of thousands of civilians, soldiers, and freedom fighters since 1989.

On Monday, the army said it had killed two gunmen on the Indian side of the heavily militarised de facto border with Pakistan.

The territory has been without an elected local government since 2019, when its partial autonomy was cancelled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and it was brought under New Delhi’s direct rule.

A total of 8.7 million people will be eligible to vote for the region’s assembly, with voting to begin next week and results expected on October 8.

Ahead of the vote, Modi is expected to address rallies for his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the southern Jammu areas of the territory, which has a sizeable Hindu population.

In the past two years, more than 50 soldiers were killed in clashes, mostly in the Jammu area.