The Jammu city suburb was rattled by an alleged gunfight in which police said they killed four unidentified militants travelling in a truck to Kashmir.

The alleged gunfight started early on Wednesday when the police stopped the truck for a search after the security forces noticed “unusual movement”.

The truck caught fire during the gunfight and was reduced to ashes. Plumes of smoke could be seen from a distance.

Additional director-general of police, Jammu, Mukesh Singh, said the encounter took place around 7.30am at the Sidhra suburb near Tawi bridge. There was intense fog in the area.

“They (security forces) started searching the truck. They (suspected militants) opened fire from inside. In the retaliatory fire, four militants were killed. The truck driver managed to flee but efforts are on to trace him. He will be arrested soon,” Singh told reporters.

The police said they had seized seven AK-47 rifles, three pistols and a large quantity of ammunition from the site of the gunfight. Traffic on the road remained disrupted for hours and was cleared only after authorities removed the truck’s remains

“It can be said that the truck was taking terrorists from Jammu to Kashmir. It is too early to say where they came from, whether it was an infiltration bid or not,” ADG Singh said.

Jammu has witnessed a surge in militancy after the 2019 scrapping of special status, prompting politicians to accuse the Centre of failure to control militancy.

An alleged gunfight on December 16 during which two civilians were killed, however, came under cloud when family and locals accused the army of killing two civilians. Following protests, the government ordered an inquiry.

Opposition parties claimed the government had not only failed in controlling militancy in the Valley but it had now spread to Jammu.

“It is tragic that militancy has spread to Jammu,” former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said. “The government claims that it has uprooted militancy from Kashmir but today there is militancy even in Jammu, which is its biggest failure.”

While militancy continues unabated in Kashmir, Jammu province has seen multiple militant attacks, seen as an attempt by militants and their Pakistani backers to revive insurgency in the region.

In one of the worst attacks this year, militants killed four army men in a pre-dawn strike on an army post in Jammu’s Rajouri district in August.

Women walk on a bridge over the partially frozen Dal Lake in Srinagar on Wednesday. The minimum temperature in Srinagar was -5.6°C, down from minus -4.8°C on Tuesday night, officials said. There is a possibility of intermittent light to moderate snowfall at scattered places over two days from Thursday, they added. PTI picture