Backtracking from their earlier claims, the J-K Police on Thursday admitted that they have no conclusive evidence to establish that the two suspected militants killed in a gun battle in Kupwara belonged to the southern state of Kerala.

“It is premature for us to determine their identity,” Inspector General of Police (Kashmir Range) B Srinivas told reporters after a function here. “We have so far not been able to ascertain the identity of the two militants killed in Kupwara.”

Srinivas said that the J-K Police were in-touch with concerned the state police to identify the slain militants. “As and when we get the information, we will give it to you (mediapersons),” he said.

The IGP added that the police had made its assumptions regarding the home state of the killed militants on the basis of various documents found on the men. “All we said was that we had recovered some literature in the Malayalam language and the identity cards from the possession of the slain militants,” Srinivas said.

Based on their preliminary investigations, the J-K police had earlier claimed that the two slain militants belonged hailed from Kerala and were members of the militant outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba. The police had further revealed that an identity card was recovered from one of the dead men identified him as Shakeel Mohammad of 383 Chowk, Kovalam, Kerala.

J-K police officials had even said that they were on the lookout for three more militants from the same group who were trying to cross over to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Meanwhile, the police in Kerala deny that the militants belong to their state.