Raxaul/New Delhi, Nov. 3: Tensions persisted along the India-Nepal border and between the capitals of the two countries today amid a war of words following the death of a 21-year-old Indian student in firing by Nepalese police yesterday.

Most traders in Raxaul, the border town in India that is the gateway for over 70 per cent of bilateral trade, kept their establishments shut today as the people waited for Nepal to return the body of Ashish Kumar, the victim of yesterday's firing. The body was handed over to Kumar's family late this evening.

In Kathmandu, the Indian embassy criticized comments by Satya Narayan Mandal, a sitting Nepal government minister who had yesterday said New Delhi was planning to send in troops dressed in plainclothes.

"The comments are provocative, ill-intentioned and baseless," the Indian embassy said in a statement. "Coming from a responsible person holding the post of minister in [the] government of Nepal, the comments are even more disconcerting and have the potential to adversely affect the cordial relations between India and Nepal."

Protestors belonging to Nepal's Madhesi community have blocked the border crossing at Raxaul and Birgunj - the town just across the border in the Himalayan nation - for over two months now to pressure Kathmandu on demands for amendments to a new constitution.

The Madhesi community, which constitutes about 36 per cent of Nepal's population, is convinced the new constitution adopted late September discriminates against them.

The protests and the choking of transit points along the border have sparked tension between India and Nepal unseen in several years that has evaporated the goodwill Prime Minister Narendra Modi's twin visits to Kathmandu last year had generated.

Nepal has blamed India for the border blockades - a charge New Delhi has repeatedly rejected.

But Ashish Kumar, a native of Darbhanga in Bihar, yesterday became the first Indian to be killed in the violence along the border, that has also claimed 40 Nepalese lives in clashes between protestors and Nepal police.

Kumar was part of a congregation of onlookers from the Indian side who had assembled near the border, around 210km north of Patna, to witness Nepal police action on the agitating Madhesis in Birgunj yesterday. Kumar was living in Raxaul in East Champaran district with relatives to pursue studies. Birgunj is barely 5km away from Raxaul.

East Champaran district magistrate Anupam Kumar and superintendent of Police Jitendra Rana visited the incident site at 'No-man's' land - a strip of territory between Raxaul and Birgunj - late on Monday evening to review the situation. Later, he held a close-door meeting with the local officials of administration, paramilitary force Sashastra Seema Bal and the customs department. "The customs has suffered a loss nearly of Rs 2 crore on account of the ongoing border unrest in the past two months," said deputy commissioner Pawan Kumar.