Indian border troops have shot dead a Pakistani man they say crossed the international frontier and did not stop when challenged.
The shooting occurred two weeks after conflict erupted between the two nuclear-armed countries that led to four days of violence and more than 70 people being killed before a ceasefire was agreed.
India’s border security force (BSF) said its troops had spotted “one suspicious person advancing towards the border fence”, which lies beyond the international frontier, in Gujarat state’s Banaskantha district on Friday evening.
“They challenged the intruder, but he continued to advance, prompting them to open fire,” the BSF said in a statement on Saturday. “The intruder was neutralised on the spot.”
The Gujarat and Rajasthan states of India, which share a border with Pakistan’s south-eastern Sindh province, have been hubs of drug smuggling, and many Pakistani drug smugglers have been arrested or killed there. Millions of dollars worth of drugs have been seized in both states, and also on the Gujarat coast on the Arabian Sea.
Pakistani officials privy to the information said India did not reveal the real identity of the individual and described the statement as “vague”. A Pakistani official questioned how the man managed to get so far from the border in Banaskantha district, and said they were “investigating the killing and identity of the person”.
The recent conflict began after India blamed Pakistan for a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in April that killed 26 people. Islamabad denied New Delhi’s claims it backed the militant group.
India launched missile strikes, claiming to have targeted terrorist infrastructure inside Pakistan, which responded by firing missiles at Indian military targets. Soon after the the ceasefire, New Delhi said any future terrorist attacks on its territory would be considered an act of war.
Pakistan has denied any involvement in the militant attack in Kashmir. It has become more vocal in blaming India for a rising wave of militant attacks that have struck Pakistan, particularly in the regions of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Pakistan has repeatedly accused India of using proxy militant groups to carry out terrorist attacks in order to destabilise the country, which India has denied.
