BSF personnel shoot 19-year-old dead in Bengal during raid to nab cattle smugglers

Kolkata, August 11 

A 19-year-old man was shot dead allegedly by BSF troopers in West Bengal’s Coochbehar district, along the India-Bangladesh border, police said.

According to a senior police officer, BSF personnel, during a raid to nab cattle smugglers in a village in Tufanganj area of Coochbehar district on Sunday night, allegedly gunned down Shahinur Haq.

“We have come to know that a 19-year-old youth was shot dead by the BSF. We have started an investigation into the incident. We are in touch with BSF officials,” the senior officer said.

The BSF Guwahati frontier, under whose jurisdiction the area falls, is yet to issue a statement on the incident.

North Bengal development minister Rabindranath Ghosh, who visited the village on Tuesday morning, told PTI that he would take up the matter with higher authorities.

“The BSF just can’t kill someone on suspicion that he was a cattle smuggler. If a person is caught red-handed, you take action. But just based on suspicion, you can’t shoot someone. We will take up the matter with the higher authorities. This is inhuman. You kill someone and then accuse him of being a cattle smuggler,” Ghosh said. –PTI