A head constable of the Border Security Force (BSF) suffered a bullet injury when a group of smugglers allegedly attacked a team of the BSF raiding a home for narcotics at Sikra village adjacent to the India-Bangladesh border in Nadia district’s Chapra on Monday afternoon.

Satish Kumar, attached to the 82nd Battalion under Krishnagar sector, received a bullet in his right arm when the goons opened indiscriminate firing using country-made firearms. Another bullet grazed at his right arm.The alleged smugglers also shot pellets at the BSF team.

The attackers, however, managed to escape when the BSF personnel tried to overpower them physically and fired non-lethal pellets in self-defence. The goons, their faces covered, managed to flee with the a big consignment of phensedyl, a contraband cough syrup that is smuggled to Bangladesh in large numbers.The injured constable was rushed to Chapra block hospital and was later transferred to the Nadia district hospital in Krishnagar.

Speaking to The Telegraph, the BSF South Bengal Frontier’s DIG (G) Amerish Arya said: “We had a tip-off about a stockyard of narcotics at a house in the Sikra village of Chapra. We spotted the house and began a raid around 4pm. Our personnel also found phensedyl bottles in large numbers. Suddenly, a group of about 15 goons started to fire indiscriminately. It was a sudden deadly attack in which one head constable of the raiding team suffered a serious bullet injury.”“However, our personnel did not open fire since the location of the attack was inside a village (Sikra),” the DIG added.

DIG Arya also said that the BSF had adopted “a zero--tolerance policy towards smuggling along the border”. “We are conducting raids at the narcotic dens while thwarting smuggling bids that apparently made the goons attack our team,” the DIG said.A police team later went to the spot of the firing and began a combing operation in the area. However, no suspected smugglers could be arrested till late in the evening.Chapra police have started two separate cases under the NDPS Act and under relevant sections of the IPC for attempt to murder on the basis of a complaint lodged by BSF authorities.