By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday said Indian Border Security Force (BSF) personnel had shot dead two unarmed civilians near the international border in Punjab.
State-run Radio Pakistan, citing security sources, reported that three residents of Ladhar village in Kasur district had walked a few steps beyond a border pillar when BSF personnel “opened fire on them without warning”. Two were killed and a third was wounded.
The dead were named as Azmat Rasool, son of Attaullah, and Mohsin Jatt. Both came from Jattan Wali Haveli in Ladhar. The identity of the injured man was not given.
The sources said all three were unarmed and that none had tried to cross the border fence. They said the shooting breached the border arrangements and standard operating procedures governing the frontier. Radio Pakistan also accused Indian media of pursuing a “false-flag narrative” by labelling the men infiltrators.
The shooting came a day after a separate dispute between the two militaries over the reported death of a former Pakistani soldier. Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, director general of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), presented the retired soldier, Muhammad Asif, at a press conference in Rawalpindi on Thursday, after Indian media reported that he had been killed in Kashmir. Indian reports had linked the name to a man killed in a 29–30 September operation in the Korag–Yousmarg area and described him as a Lashkar-e-Taiba militant and former Special Services Group (SSG) soldier. Asif told reporters he retired from the SSG in 2023, lives in Rawalpindi and works for a security company.
Asked at the briefing whether the allegations could trigger another armed conflict, Gen Chaudhry said Pakistan’s armed forces were always ready and warned of “very harsh” retribution.
The latest incident comes against a history of fatal firing along the frontier, particularly in villages close to the Working Boundary. In October 2016, the military said two civilians, one of them a toddler, were killed and seven wounded in the Harpal, Pukhlian and Charwah sectors. In September 2017, it said a civilian was killed in Dewra village by mortar and automatic fire. In May 2018, local media, citing the ISPR and the Foreign Office, reported that four members of one family were killed near Sialkot and 10 others wounded. The toll reached 16 during a wider six-day confrontation.
In October 2019, the Foreign Office said a 10-year-old boy was killed and 16 civilians were seriously hurt in the Sharda sector. Civilians were also reported seriously injured in the Nikial and Baroh sectors in 2020. At least seven people were wounded in 2021, before the two sides reaffirmed their ceasefire in February that year. Media reported three civilian deaths in two Line of Control incidents in 2023.
Relations have been strained since the Pahalgam attack in April 2025. The two nuclear-armed neighbours fought a brief but intense conflict the following month.
The two key links are now clearer: the Asif dispute is explicitly connected to the previous day’s events, and the historical section is explicitly tied to the latest shooting.
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