India and Pakistan summoned each other's senior diplomats on Saturday, trading accusations over the shooting of two Pakistani men by India's Border Security Force (BSF) on Friday along the international border in Punjab. Islamabad says the victims were unarmed civilians; New Delhi says they were infiltrators who ignored repeated warnings.
Pakistan's Foreign Office said it summoned the Indian chargé d'affaires to protest what it called "unprovoked and lethal force" against unarmed civilians in the Bedian sector, near Kasur. It described the force used as "wholly unjustified and grossly disproportionate" and rejected any attempt to label the dead as "infiltrators". A third man was reportedly injured. Pakistani media and security sources identified the men as residents of Ladhar village and said none had tried to cross the border fence. Pakistan demanded an "immediate, transparent and credible investigation", disciplinary and legal action against those responsible, and a formal report on the findings. The names and ages reported for the dead differ between sources.
Later on Saturday, India's foreign ministry summoned Pakistan's chargé d'affaires. It rejected what it called "baseless and motivated allegations" and protested the "continued facilitation of illegal cross-border infiltration from Pakistan". The BSF said it had seen three men moving through paddy fields towards the border at around 11:30 a.m., and that they did not stop despite several warnings. The ministry said the force was "compelled to engage them for posing an imminent security threat". Indian accounts differ slightly on the location, citing the Tarn Taran district and the Ferozepur sector of Punjab. Officials did not confirm whether any weapons were found. India said the incident reflected a pattern of cross-border movement by armed narcotics syndicates and asked Pakistan to investigate drug smuggling and any complicity by its border forces. A senior BSF official said the bodies were handed over to Pakistani Rangers on Saturday after post-mortem procedures.
The diplomats involved, Satyanjal Pandey in Islamabad and Saad Warraich in New Delhi, are the highest-ranking envoys in each capital. Both countries downgraded their missions and recalled their High Commissioners in 2019.
The dispute comes amid long-running tension between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. Relations have been strained since a four-day war in 2025, the worst fighting in decades, which followed a militant attack on tourists in Indian Kashmir that killed 26 people. India accused Pakistan of backing that attack; Islamabad denied it. On Friday, Pakistan's military spokesman, Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, dismissed Indian claims of having "neutralised" a terrorist linked to the Pakistani military. Asked whether the allegations could lead to renewed conflict, he said the armed forces were ready and warned of "very harsh" retribution.
Why this matters: the incident is small in scale, but with diplomatic channels already limited and rhetoric sharp, border shootings and conflicting accounts can quickly feed wider mistrust.