Two Hizbul Mujahideen militants, including PhD scholar-turned-terrorist Manan Bashir Wani, were killed Thursday during an encounter with security forces at Handwara in frontier district of north Kashmir, officials said.

The encounter broke out in the early hours at Satgund in Handwara following a specific intelligence about presence of Wani, 27, along with two others, they said.

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Giving details emerging from the encounter site, which ended, police and other security forces were fired upon by holed up militants resulting in exchange of fire which continued till 11 AM.

Police was also making repeated announcements on public address system appealing to the militants to surrender, the officials said.

There was a lull in firing at around 9 AM, prompting the police to initiate search operation at the encounter site, but the same had to be suspended after firing resumed after 15 minutes, the officials said.

Wani, who was enrolled as a PhD scholar with the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), joined militant ranks in January this year. He was expelled from AMU earlier in January this year after the Jammu and Kashmir Police said they were looking for him for joining the Hizbul Mujahideen militant group.