DHAKA: Dhaka on Monday summoned the Indian High Commissioner to protest the “brutal” killing of a teenage girl by Indian border security forces, which has sparked outcry in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh's acting foreign secretary called the Indian High Commissioner to Dhaka and “handed over a note verbally protesting the brutal and senseless killing” of the girl, Felini, on January 7, the foreign ministry said.

The 15-year-old, who used only one name, was shot dead after she tried to re-enter Bangladesh by climbing a barbwire fence India has erected along sections of the two countries' border, according to local newspapers.

Her bullet-ridden body was left hanging on the fence for hours as thousands of villagers on both sides of the border looked on.

The protests came a month after the New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a new report that Indian security forces routinely gunned down cattle traders and other civilians along the border.

HRW said it had found numerous cases of indiscriminate use of force, arbitrary detention, torture, and killings by the Indian Border Security Force (BSF).

The report, called Trigger Happy: Excessive Use of Force by Indian Troops at the Bangladesh Border, claims that the BSF have killed more than 900 cattle traders – both Indians and Bangladeshis – over the past 10 years.

India helped Bangladesh win independence from Pakistan in 1971 but relations in recent years have often been soured by border skirmishes, for which both sides blame the other.

They share a 4,095-kilometre (2,540-mile) border that is largely unfenced and their frontier guards routinely exchange gunfire.

India frequently accuses Bangladesh of pushing illegal migrants across the border and harbouring militants fighting Indian rule in its northeast. Dhaka says New Delhi allows Bangladeshi criminals to take refuge on its soil.

In 2001, 16 Indian and three Bangladeshi soldiers were killed in the deadliest border clash between the two sides.