Senior security officer dies in Kashmir blast

SRINAGAR (Reuters) - A senior Indian security officer was killed on Monday when his jeep ran over a landmine near the Pakistan border of disputed Kashmir, police said.

The deputy inspector general of the border guards was one of the highest ranking officers to have been killed in recent years during Kashmir violence.

Police blamed separatist militants for the powerful blast in which three border guards were also wounded. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Earlier on Monday two soldiers were killed while fighting a group of militants trying to sneak into Indian Kashmir from the Pakistani side, an army spokesman said.

Security officials say Pakistan-based militant groups have stepped up efforts to infiltrate into the region across a military control line, or the Line of Control (LoC), before winter snow blocks the Himalayan mountain passes.

The LoC divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan, who have gone to war twice over the region.

Pakistan, which like India claims the region in full, has consistently denied its involvement in abetting the anti-India insurgency that has killed more than 47,000 people since 1989.

(Reporting by Sheikh Mushtaq and Ashok Pahalwan; Editing by Matthias Williams)