Amnesty International India called Thursday for an independent and impartial investigation into the killing of seven people in a blast in Kulgam on Sunday.

Kulgam, a district of Kashmir and Jammu, is the site of ongoing conflict between Lashkar-e-Taiba, which translates to “Army of the Pure,” and the Indian government. According to a Stanford report, this group is an Islamic militant group based in Pakistan fighting against Indian control in Kasmir and Jammu and is “part of a global struggle against the oppression of Muslims.”

The encounter on Sunday resulted in the death of three militants and seven civilians. Amnesty is pushing for an investigation into the encounter arguing that extra caution should always be taken to ensure that civilians in the area do not become collateral damage.

Police report that after a gunfight, the three militants were killed in a house. Once the shooting had stopped, civilians went too close to the site before it had been “sanitized” by the police. The police themselves have initiated an investigation into the encounter and the deaths of the civilians.

Based on this police report, Amnesty said that the casualties could have been avoided had the police taken more precautions and ensured that the local population did not have access to the site until after the police had sanitized it. Amnesty is pushing for an investigation that is impartial and independent of the police, with the goal being to create a requirement for police to exercise more caution so as to lower the risk of civilian death as “collateral damage.”