The attack comes amid intense tensions between India and Pakistan along the Line of Control that divides Kashmir.
Rebel fighters in Indian-controlled Kashmir killed two soldiers in an attack on the main city of the disputed region, the Indian army said.
Colonel Rajesh Kalia, a spokesman for the Indian army, said fighters fired on an army patrol on the outskirts of Srinagar city on Thursday.
Two soldiers were seriously injured and later died in a hospital, he said.
The police and soldiers launched a search operation for the attackers.
The attack comes during almost daily fighting between Pakistani and Indian soldiers along the highly militarized border that divides Kashmir between the two nuclear-armed rivals.
The Indian military said Pakistani soldiers attacked Indian positions with mortars along the de facto border in the southern Poonch district on Thursday. Indian soldiers retaliated, the army said in a statement. It reported no victims.
On November 13, nine civilians and six soldiers were killed on both sides when Indian and Pakistani soldiers exchanged artillery fire at various locations along the de facto border. The deaths were some of the highest reported in a single day in recent years.
India and Pakistan claim the entire region. They have fought three wars, two of them for control of Kashmir, since the British colonialists granted them independence in 1947.
A Kashmiri woman walks past security officers on duty near the site of an attack on the outskirts of Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir [Mukhtar Khan/AP]
The rebels have been fighting the Indian government since 1989. Most Muslims in Kashmir support the goal of having the territory united under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
Tensions in the disputed Himalayan region have risen since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government removed Kashmir’s special status in August 2019, annulled its separate constitution, divided the region into two federal territories, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, and it subsequently removed inherited protections over land and employment. .
The move sparked widespread anger and economic ruin amid a harsh security crackdown and a communications blackout.
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