Two Indian soldiers were killed in a firefight with Pakistani troops near their disputed border in Kashmir on Tuesday and one of the bodies was badly mutilated, an army spokesman said.

Spokesman Rajesh Kalia told AFP that Pakistani troops had intruded into Indian territory before the clash began.

An Indian ground patrol "saw something suspicious and then there was a firefight with Pakistani troops", Kalia said by phone of the incident around noon (0630 GMT).

An Indian soldier looks through a spotting scope at a military camp in Gurez on August 20, 2011. Pakistani troops have killed two Indian soldiers near the tense disputed border in Kashmir, two Indian military sources said, two days after Islamabad said one of its soldiers was killed there.

"We lost two soldiers and one of them has been badly mutilated," he added, declining to give more details.

"The (Pakistani) intruders were regular soldiers and they were 400-500 metres (1,300-1,600 feet) inside our territory," Kalia said.