A suspected smuggler was gunned down in Nadia’s Chapra by a Border Security Force jawan who tried to thwart an attempt to breach the barbed wire fencing for smuggling birds and medicines during the early hours of Saturday.

Sources said Ashique Halsana, 18, was earlier a construction worker in Mumbai who was forced to return home to Ranabandh-Bhatgachi village in Chapra in April 2020 during the pandemic-induced lockdown. He allegedly got involved in a smuggling racket after the lockdown lifted as he failed to land a job here.

A BSF spokesperson of the South Bengal Frontier said that early on Saturday around 10 persons were trying to make a passage from the Indian side of the border by cutting the barbed wire fencing at Bhatgachi to smuggle exotic birds and medicines.

“When one of our jawans challenged them, they attacked him with sharp weapons and stones. Later, the jawan fired in self-defence and one of the bullets hit Ashique.”

A source said that Ashique was found lying dead in a canal close to the India-Bangladesh border in the area. He had a bullet injury on his chest, added the source.

Chapra police recovered the body and began a probe following a complaint lodged by the BSF authorities.

Later, BSF’s Krishnagar sector DIG Amerish Kumar Arya and Battalion-82’s commanding officer Sanjay Prasad Singh rushed to the site of Saturday’s firing and appealed to villagers to discourage youths from joining smuggling rackets.

After various failed attempts to get a job in Bengal, Ashique was allegedly lured by his uncle to join a smuggling racket.

His sister Tia said that he had been trying to get a job in the village for months. “Dada had been trying to get the job of a construction labour locally but he got nothing owing to lockdown-like restrictions. On Friday night, he left home with uncle Feroz and did not return,” said the sobbing girl.

Sources said Feroz operated a smuggling racket and several teen of the area had joined it during the lockdown in hopes of a regular income. “Feroz should be blamed for Ashique’s death as he lured him into smuggling. Many other youths have joined the racket,” said a neighbour.