A gunfight with suspected fighters left two Indian soldiers dead and two others injured in India-occupied Kashmir (IoK), days before local elections in the disputed Himalayan region.

IoK has seen a rise in clashes between fighters and security forces ahead of the first local assembly polls in the region for a decade.

The Indian army said the firefight took place on Friday in Kishtwar district, paying tribute to the “supreme sacrifice of the bravehearts” in a post on social media platform X.

The territory has been without an elected local government since 2019, when its partial autonomy was cancelled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

A total of 8.7 million people will be eligible to vote for the region’s assembly when the election begins on September 18, with results expected in October.

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

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

New Delhi accuses Pakistan of backing the region’s fighters and cross-border attacks inside its territory — claims Islamabad denies.

Modi campaigns in IoK polls

Modi said “terrorism is on its last legs” in IoK while campaigning in the disputed territory on Saturday, a day after the two soldiers were killed.

“The changes in the region in the last decade are nothing short of a dream,” Modi told thousands of supporters at the rally in Doda, part of IoK’s Hindu-majority southern region of Jammu.

“The stones that were picked up earlier to attack the police and the army are now being used to construct a new Jammu and Kashmir. This is a new era of progress, terrorism is on its last leg here,” he said.

Modi pledged at Saturday’s rally that his party would make the region “secure and prosperous […] that is free of terrorism and a haven for tourists”.