BSF kills two Pakistani intruders on Punjab border

New Delhi/Amritsar: Two Pakistani "armed intruders" were on Thursday shot dead by the Border Security Force along the International Border in Punjab as the force thwarted three bids of drugs smuggling at this front.

In the first interception, two men in their 30s were killed near the Rajatal border post in Amritsar around 2:20 am after the troops on guard detected suspicious movement ahead of the border fence in Indian territory, a BSF spokesperson said. "The BSF sentry on duty heard some crawling sound near the fence. He challenged the approaching people in dense fog but he instead heard the sound of cocking the gun by the intruders. "The BSF jawan fired in self defence and later we recovered two bodies of the armed intruders from the spot," BSF Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Bhupinder Singh told reporters in Amritsar.

An AK-56 rifle, semi-automatic rifle, pistol, 90 bullets, five magazines and two PVC pipes, usually used to push drug packets across the border, of about ten feet each, have been seized after a search was conducted of the incident site, the DIG said. No drugs were found in this spot, he added. The officer said the force is "lodging a protest" with the Pakistan Rangers to inform them that the intruders were using their territory to push narcotics on the Indian side. He said two more attempts to smuggle drugs were thwarted in the same region, one being near its Ramkot border post. (PTI)