The army chief’s two-day visit to Indian-held Kashmir over the weekend came as the insurgency-hit region witnessed an increase in violence.

“Indian troops shot dead six militants who had infiltrated into our side from across the Line of Control (LoC),” army spokesman Anil Mathur told AFP.

Mathur confirmed that two Indian soldiers also died in the fighting Saturday evening, which he said followed a “major infiltration bid.”

The clash was the second along the heavily guarded border since army chief General Deepak Kapoor arrived in the state Friday, with three militants and a soldier dying in earlier fighting.

In separate clashes Saturday, two rebels and a soldier died in other parts of Kashmir, army spokesman Mathur said.

Kapoor told reporters in Kashmir that the week’s surge in violence showed it was not yet time for the Indian army to scale back its presence in the state, a key demand by some pro-India Kashmiri groups and moderate separatists.

“It may not be right to bring down the number of troops in Kashmir till the violence is fully taken care of,” Kapoor told reporters in Berwa, about 35 kilometres (20 miles) west of summer capital Srinagar, on Saturday.

Berwa was the site of some of the fiercest fighting in Kashmir in months, with two army majors dying Wednesday in a gunbattle that also killed nine rebels.

The general said militants were still trying to cross into India from Pakistan-administered Kashmir in spite of an overall dip in levels of violence in recent years.

“Whenever there is a semblance of peace in the state the incidents of violence go up,” said Kapoor. “Recent killings along the LoC are proof.”

India accuses Pakistan of arming and funding militants who launched an uprising against New Delhi’s rule almost two decades ago. Islamabad denies the charge.

The region routinely witnesses a spike in violence during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, now underway. This week saw almost a doubling of Kashmir’s average of two insurgency-related deaths a day.

At least 42,000 people, more than a third of them civilians, have died in the conflict, according to official figures.