Villager killed, another injured in BSF firing along Bangladesh border in Tripura

Agartala: An Indian villager was killed and another injured after the BSF fired to disperse a "mob of attackers" along the India-Bangladesh border in Tripura's Sepahijala district, officials said on Thursday.

A Border Security Force (BSF) spokesman said that around 30 to 40 Indian smugglers, violating the curfew imposed on the border, tried to smuggle contraband items to Bangladesh at Durgapur village late on Wednesday night and its troopers challenged them.

However, the mob surrounded the BSF personnel, tried to snatch their weapons, and attacked them with sharp-edged weapons, leaving three BSF men seriously injured. They also vandalised the BSF duty point and damaged surveillance equipment.

The spokesman said that sensing imminent danger to life and threat to government property, BSF troopers fired in self-defence and to disperse the violent mob. Two of the assailants were hit and one of them subsequently succumbed to his injuries.

The injured person was shifted to the hospital.

Sepahijala's Superintendent of Police Bogati Jagadeeswar Reddy said that the villagers alleged that during the border patrolling, a scuffle between the local people and the BSF took place and the troopers fired on the villagers without any provocation.

"An impartial probe of the incident would be conducted. A forensic team visited the site and collected evidence," he told the media after visiting the border area.

An FIR was lodged with Sonamura police station in this regard. Tension ran high in the border village on Thursday and senior BSF and police officials with additional reinforcement are camping in the area.

On March 17, a Bangladeshi smuggler was killed in a clash with the BSF at Magroli in Tripura's Unakoti district. Two BSF personnel were also injured in that clash as smugglers mounted an attack on them.

Tripura shares an 856-km-long border with Bangladesh, which surrounds the state on three sides. Some patches of the frontier are still unfenced due to local disputes and demarcation-related issues.