An alleged Bangladeshi smuggler was gunned down by troops of the Border Security Force (BSF) in the wee hours of Wednesday when a group tried to sneak inside India and attacked one of the BSF jawans on duty with sharp weapons and sticks.

Sources in the BSF said around 1.40am, when their personnel of the 70th battalion were patrolling on the India-Bangladesh border near the Nawada border outpost in Malda district, they spotted 15 to 20 suspected smugglers on Indian territory.

As a BSF jawan challenged them, the group attacked him.. The jawan lobbed a non-lethal stun grenade, but they kept advancing, sources said.

This prompted the jawan to open fire, which left one among the group injured while others fled. The injured youth was rushed to the Malda Medical College and Hospital where doctors pronounced him dead. So far he has only been identified as Ibrahim, 24, of Dhulipara village, Chapai-Nawabganj district of Bangladesh.

The BSF found 197 bottles of cough syrup, a cell phone and some blunt weapons.

The south Bengal frontier of BSF issued a statement that the deceased lived some 6km away from the international boundary in Bangladesh. A BSF protest note was sent to the Border Guards Bangladesh, asking the latter to stop smugglers from approaching the international border.

TMC supporter shot at Hamid Mian, a Trinamul supporter of Bhagnitari village under Gitaldaha-I panchayat under Dinhata police station was injured when some people fired at him on Wednesday.

The bullet grazed his head and hit one of his cattle. Hamid has been admitted at the sub-divisional hospital in Dinhata while vets are trying to extract the bullet from the cow.

The incident, locals said, is fallout of an inner clash among two lobbies of Trinamul. They said the groups had clashed on Tuesday night, prompting police to intervene. Three persons were arrested during the clash.

On Wednesday, while Hamid was working in his field, some members of both sides clashed and it led to the firing. Policemen have been deployed in the area.

Additional report by our Cooch Behar correspondent