India and Pakistan Trade Protests After Punjab Border Deaths

India and Pakistan exchanged diplomatic protests on October 3 after two people were killed in a Punjab border incident the previous day, with the governments giving conflicting accounts of who the deceased were and why Indian border forces opened fire. India summoned Pakistan’s chargé d’affaires in New Delhi, while Pakistan had earlier summoned India’s diplomat in Islamabad and called for an investigation. India’s Ministry of External Affairs said it summoned the Pakistani envoy to protest what it described as continued facilitation of cross-border infiltration. The ministry rejected Pakistan’s allegations about the October 2 incident in Punjab’s Ferozepur sector and said three people entered Indian territory. According to India’s account, the three ignored repeated Border Security Force warnings to return to Pakistan and continued toward the border fence. The ministry said the BSF engaged them because they posed an imminent security threat. The reports say two people were killed. The available accounts do not independently establish the sequence of events or the circumstances of the shooting.