India border guards shoot, kill 3 cattle smugglers

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - India's border guards shot dead three villagers, including a Bangladeshi national in its eastern state of West Bengal late on Thursday, and said they had tightened security a day after the incident.

An Indian Border Security Force (BSF) patrol party shot the three cattle smugglers in a northern district of the Indian state when they tried to flee with cattle across the border to Bangladesh, Ashish Kumar Mitra, BSF's director general said on Friday.

West Bengal shares a long border with Bangladesh and normally friendly relations between India and Bangladesh have often been marred by border firing, especially after New Delhi began fencing off the frontier to stop illegal migrants, cattle smugglers and militants.

"We have tightened border vigil in the area following the incident," Mitra told Reuters by telephone from New Delhi.

Officials in Bangladesh confirmed Thursday's killings, saying two of the dead villagers were Indian nationals.

Bangladesh has not opposed India's border fencing project, but has raised objections where the fence is built too close to a no-man's land zone along the 4,100-km land and river border.

On Friday, BSF officials said they found tools used for the cutting of barbed wire near the villagers' bodies.