India on Thursday was frugal with words for the last week’s border firing by its security forces in which a Nepali national was killed, as it refused to mention “firing” or “Sashastra Seema Bal”.

India expresses grief at the death of a Nepali national at the Indo-Nepal border and will carry out a fair and impartial enquiry into the incident, Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh told Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Bimalendra Nidhi on Thursday.  

During a meeting with Singh, DPM Nidhi, who is in New Delhi to participate in a conference, raised the border firing and killing of Gobinda Gautam. “Singh expressed regret at the death of Gautam,” Nidhi told the Post after the meeting. 

Gautam, 32, of Punarbas in Kanchanpur district died on March 9 when India’s Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) opened fire on Nepalis during their altercation with Indian locals over the construction of a culvert.

India’s Press Information Bureau (PIB), however, stopped short of mentioning “SSB” or “firing” in a press statement posted on its website about the Nidhi-Singh meeting.

Singh expressed “grief on the death of a Nepali national at the Indo-Nepal border in Lakhimpur Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh. He stated that India will carry out a fair and impartial enquiry into the incident and associate the Nepali counterparts in the effort to arrive at the truth,” said the PIB. Nepal’s Home Ministry said on Wednesday that “the ballistics of the bullet that killed Gautam indicates that it was fired by Indian security forces”. 

DPM Nidhi on Wednesday itself had informed India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval of the findings and conveyed to him that post-mortem, forensic and ballistics reports had been sent to India. 

The PIB has quoted Singh as telling Nidhi that “any incident taking place even unknowingly, should be settled through joint inspection and investigation by the representatives of two sides”. 

Nidhi and Singh also discussed other border-related issues during their meeting on Thursday. 

According to the PIB, Singh said that wherever strip maps have been finalised, the same should be signed by the 

concerned authorities at the earliest. The Indian side also asked for regular meetings between chiefs of SSB and Nepal’s Armed Police Force. Meetings between the two security agencies from Nepal and India have not taken place for the last three years. 

“I will take initiatives for regular meetings between the two agencies,” Nidhi told the Post. 

Nidhi also raised the Kanchanpur incident with Indian Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj later on Thursday.