Agartala, July 22 (TIWN / IANS): Tension prevailed after a 24-year-old Muslim woman was found shot dead on Friday in a border village in Sepahijala district of Tripura as BSF troops fired at some cattle smugglers who failed to obey an order to halt, officials said.

"During routine patrolling along the India-Bangladesh border on early Friday morning, BSF jawans asked a group of cattle thieves to stop proceeding towards Bangladesh. The jawans opened fire when the smugglers didn't obey the order," a BSF official said.

The official said the woman's body was later recovered from Tarapukur village along the India-Bangladesh border.

On the other hand, villagers complained to police that some BSF men tried to molest Maya Khatun and later shot her dead.

"No written complaint has been received yet," an official of the Sonamura police station told IANS over phone.

Senior police and BSF officials rushed to the spot, 65 km south from here, to pacify a mob agitating after the woman's death.

Tripura has a 856-km long India-Bangladesh border, with a little over 85 per cent of it fenced.