Some CRPF men have suffered some injuries as well in the firing. (File)

Three CRPF men were killed and two injured after militants fired at a checkpoint in North Kashmir’s Sopore on Saturday evening.

“There was a naka (checkpoint) in the area. They(militants) fired at us and we retaliated. We have lost three men,” Zulfiquar Hasan, CRPF’s Special DG (J&K Zone) told The Indian Express.

A CRPF spokesperson said the militants fired at a check post that was jointly being manned by troops of CRPF’s 179th battalion and the Jammu and Kashmir Police. The injured personnel were admitted to the Army’s 92 Base hospital in Srinagar.

Superintendent of police (SP) Sopore, Javid Iqbal, said they had launched a cordon and search operation in the area and a manhunt was on to nab the militants.

This is the third attack against the paramilitary force in the Kashmir valley within a week. A CRPF trooper was injured on Friday after terrorists fired at a similar check post in Pulwama.

On Friday, four militants in Jammu and Kashmir, two of whom had recently attacked a police party, were killed in separate encounters.

One of the gunfights took place in Kishtwar district. The two militants slain there were identified as Basharat Hussain and Ashiq Hussain. They had killed a Special Police Officer and injured another near Dacchan area earlier this week, before decamping with their weapons, police said.

Ashiq had been released from prison 20 days earlier after getting bail in an abduction and rape case.

The other encounter took place in Dairoo village in South Kashmir’s Shopian in the early hours.

Shopian SP Amritpal Singh told The Indian Express that the two militants killed there were “unidentified”. “No (family) approached us. So we are burying them somewhere in Baramulla (North Kashmir),” he said.