Nepal’s border police shot at a group of Indian villagers on Friday for alleged lockdown violations, killing one and injuring two and heating up the settled Bihar border amid a rekindled territorial dispute farther to the west.

Both sides described it as a localised incident but it immediately caught the spotlight in the two countries.

Nepal’s Armed Police Force (APF), which guards the border, also arrested an Indian. Its Indian counterpart, the Sashastra Seema Bal, identified the dead man as Vikash Yadav, 22, and the arrested man as Laagan Yadav.

Statements put out by the APF and the SSB did not contradict each other too much and local commanders from both sides were in touch to ease the situation.

Police in Bihar’s border district of Sitamarhi, home to the Indian victims, said the incident happened during a meeting between family members from either side of the border.

Such meetings are common in normal times but though the Indian side of the border is no longer under lockdown, the Nepali side is.

SSB director-general Kumar Rajesh Chandra said the firing took place around 8.40am inside Nepal after APF troops objected to Laagan’s daughter-in-law, a Nepali, talking to people from India.

“The APF asked them (Indians) to leave their territory citing the lockdown, which is (in effect) till June 14 in their country,” Chandra said.

“This led to an altercation as some people from nearby villages had also arrived there. The APF alleges the villagers became very aggressive and they had to fire, while the villagers say the APF got aggressive.”

The APF is said to have fired 15 rounds, 10 of them in the air. Vikash, of Pipra Parsai village, took a bullet near his chest and later died of his injuries.

The injured Uday Sharma and Umesh Ram, from Soharwa and Janaki Nagar villages, are being treated at a government facility in Sitamarhi and are out of danger, Sitamarhi superintendent of police Anil Kumar said.

APF additional inspector-general Narayan Babu Thapa told PTI in Kathmandu that the Indians were stopped because of the lockdown in Nepal and were soon joined by other villagers.

“They even snatched weapons from one of our security men. After firing 10 rounds of bullets in the air, our personnel had to open fire in self-defence in which one person was killed and two others were injured,” Thapa said.

The Kathmandu Post newspaper reported that a few days ago, smugglers from India had tried to attack Nepali security personnel in the same area.

The incident comes a day before Nepal’s lower House of Parliament is to vote on a new map that includes Kalapani, Lipu Lekh and Limpiyadhura — territories near the northwestern border also claimed by India.

Anti-India rhetoric has escalated in Nepal over the past couple of weeks, with Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli not only prioritising the rekindled land dispute but blaming Nepal’s growing Covid-19 count on people coming from India.

Till late evening, there was no word from the external affairs ministry. Sources said India did not want another escalation while it was facing border troubles with China and Pakistan.

Sitamarhi police named the dead man as Vikash Rai, 25, and the arrested man as Laagan Rai. Many Yadavs in the area also use alternative surnames such as Rai.

Vikash’s father Nageshwar Rai told journalists his son had gone to work in a farm across the border.

Kumar, the Sitamarhi SP, suggested the flare-up happened when the APF “grabbed one person from the group and started taking him towards their post”.