India says its troops killed 3 suspected militants in Kashmir fighting

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Indian troops killed three suspected militants in a gunfight in a forested area in disputed Kashmir, officials said Monday.

The Indian military in a statement on social media said three militants were killed “in an intense firefight” in the forested area in Dachigam area, some 30 kilometers (19-miles) northeast of the region’s main city of Srinagar.

Police Inspector-General Vidhi Kumar Birdi told reporters that the joint operation by the military, paramilitary and police was still ongoing.

Officials did not give any other details. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify the details.

Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan each administer part of Himalayan Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.

Monday’s incident is the second major gunfight since a gun massacre in the region in April that killed 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, in Indian-controlled Kashmir. That led to tit-for-tat military strikes by India and Pakistan that brought the nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of their third war over the region.

The Indian army also said in May that its soldiers killed three suspected militants in a gunfight.

Before the April gun massacre in the Kashmiri resort town of Pahalgam, the fighting had largely ebbed in the region’s Kashmir Valley, the heartland of anti-India rebellion and mainly shifted to mountainous areas of Jammu in the last few years.

The massacre increased tensions between India and Pakistan, leading to the worst military confrontation in decades and the death of dozens of people until a ceasefire was reached on May 10 after U.S mediation.

The region has simmered in anger since New Delhi ended the region’s semi-autonomy in 2019 and drastically curbed dissent, civil liberties and media freedoms while intensifying counterinsurgency operations.

Indian soldiers guard at a check point near the site of a gun battle on the outskirts of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Monday, July 28, 2025.(AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

An Indian soldier guards at a check point near the site of a gun battle on the outskirts of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Monday, July 28, 2025.(AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

Jammu and Kashmir Special Operation Group (SOG) personnel guard near the site of a gun battle on the outskirts of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Monday, July 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

Indian soldiers guard near the site of a gun battle on the outskirts of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Monday, July 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

Jammu and Kashmir Special Operation Group (SOG) personnel arrive near the site of a gun battle on the outskirts of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Monday, July 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

The White House and a bipartisan group of governors are pressuring the operator of the mid-Atlantic power grid to take urgent steps to boost energy supply and curb price hikes, holding a Friday event aimed at addressing a rising concern among voters about the enormous amount of power used for artificial intelligence ahead of elections later this year.

The White House said its National Energy Dominance Council and the governors of several states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, want to try to compel PJM Interconnection to hold a power auction for tech companies to bid on contracts to build new power plants,

The Trump administration and governors will sign a statement of principles toward that end Friday. The plan was first reported by Bloomberg.

“Ensuring the American people have reliable and affordable electricity is one of President Trump’s top priorities, and this would deliver much-needed, long-term relief to the mid-Atlantic region," said Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is expected to be at the White House, a person familiar with Shapiro’s plans said, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement. Shapiro, a Democrat, made his participation in Friday’s event contingent on including a provision to extend a limit on wholesale electricity price increases for the region’s consumers, the person said.

But the operator of the grid won't be there. “PJM was not invited. Therefore we would not attend,” said spokesperson Jeff Shields.

It was not immediately clear whether President Donald Trump would attend the event, which was not listed on his public schedule.

Trump and the governors are under pressure to insulate consumers and businesses alike from the costs of feeding Big Tech’s energy-hungry data centers. Meanwhile, more Americans are falling behind on their electricity bills.

Consumer advocates say ratepayers in the mid-Atlantic electricity grid — which encompasses all or parts of 13 states stretching from New Jersey to Illinois, as well as Washington, D.C. — are already paying billions of dollars in higher bills to underwrite the cost to supply power to data centers, some of them built, some not.

However, they also say that the billions of dollars that consumers are paying isn’t resulting in the construction of new power plants necessary to meet the rising demand.

Pivotal contests in November will be decided by communities that are home to fast-rising electric bills or fights over who’s footing the bill for the data centers that underpin the explosion in demand for artificial intelligence. In parts of the country, data centers are coming online faster than power plants can be built and connected to the grid.

Electricity costs were a key issue in last year's elections for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, a data center hotspot, and in Georgia, where Democrats ousted two Republican incumbents for seats on the state’s utility regulatory commission. Voters in New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York City all cited economic concerns as the top issue, as Democrats and Republicans gird for a debate over affordability in the intensifying midterm battle to control Congress.

Gas and electric utilities sought or won rate increases of more that $34 billion in the first three quarters of 2025, consumer advocacy organization PowerLines reported. That was more than double the same period a year earlier.

Meta's Stanton Springs Data Center is seen Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Newton County, East of Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)