A soldier died of a gunshot wound at a military base in India’s northern border state of Punjab, but it was not related to the killing of four soldiers there hours earlier, the Indian army said on Thursday.

The soldier at Bathinda Military Station on Wednesday evening was thought to have shot himself, a statement from the army said.

“There is no connection whatsoever” to the killing of four soldiers by unknown attackers 12 hours earlier, it added.

“The soldier was on sentry duty with his service weapon. The weapon and cartridge case from the same weapon was found next to the soldier,” the statement said.

The soldier, who had returned from leave on April 11, was rushed to a military hospital, where he died of his injuries, it added.

Indian army base shooting suspects on the run: police

Meanwhile, the Indian police are hunting two masked men responsible for the pre-dawn killing of four soldiers at an army base in Punjab’s Bathinda.

Earlier on Wednesday, four soldiers were shot to death in their sleep in the barracks by two people, one of them thought to be using a rifle that was reported missing from the base two days earlier.

The rifle was located later on Wednesday but the attackers had not been caught, the army said.

State police said it was “not a terror attack”.

A police report quoting an army major who claimed to have witnessed the attack, seen by AFP today, said two unidentified men had entered the highly guarded outpost with their faces covered.

One was carrying a rifle reported missing from the base two days earlier, the report said, and the duo fled towards a forest near the barracks after the attack.

Police were scanning CCTV footage and a search for the suspects was underway, local media reports said.

Punjab has been on edge since authorities launched a manhunt for firebrand Sikh separatist preacher Amritpal Singh last month.

Singh has rallied a huge following in recent months by demanding the creation of Khalistan, a separate Sikh homeland, the struggle for which sparked deadly violence in Punjab in the 1980s and 1990s.

He remains at large despite a huge dragnet involving thousands of police officers and a statewide internet shutdown that lasted for several days.