SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) -- Three members of India's security forces and a villager were killed in a two-day gun battle between troops and suspected militants in restive region of Kashmir, the army said on Sunday.

An army spokesman said the firing began at around 03:00 P.M. (0930 GMT) on Friday after soldiers and police, who were looking for militants, surrounded Rampur village in Baramulla district -- 60km (40 miles) north of Kashmir's summer capital, Srinagar.

"The intermittent firing still continues, soldiers have laid siege to the village and launched a house to house search," Indian army spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel A. K. Mathur, said.

The number of separatist guerrillas hiding in the village and whether any had been killed or injured in the on-going ambush was not immediately known, he said.

A separatist revolt against Indian rule in Kashmir has killed more than 45,000 people since 1989.

Authorities say violence involving militants and Indian security forces has declined in the Himalayan region since India and Pakistan started a peace process in 2004.

But clashes between suspected militants and security forces have increased in recent days.

Four soldiers and two suspected militants were killed in a fierce gun battle on Saturday in southern Kashmir.

On Friday, soldiers shot dead three suspected members of Lashkar-e-Toiba, a Pakistan-based militant group in another gun battle in the disputed mountainous region.

Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full and have fought two wars over it.

India's Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee is scheduled to hold informal talks with his Pakistani counterpart, Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri next week in the first meeting between the two foreign ministers of the old rivals in more than a year.