DHAKA Bangladesh began probing Sunday allegations that the bodies of Indian border soldiers handed over to Indian authorities bore marks of torture and mutilation by Bangladesh soldiers.

The official investigations began as the body of another soldier belonging to the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) was found hidden in a rice field in the northwestern Indo-Bangladesh frontier -- the site of a fierce border clash on Wednesday which caused heavy casualties.

Bangladeshi Foreign Secretary Syed Moazzem Ali Sunday denied New Delhi's allegations of torture against any of the dead 15 BSF men whose remains were returned by Bangladesh to Indian authorities on Friday.

"Since we have got an official communication from India on the matter, we will give it due importance and conduct investigations into the allegations," DPA quoted Ali as saying.

Postmortem reports by Bangladeshi government doctors said the Indian soldiers died from multiple bullet injuries.

With the discovery of another body of an Indian soldier near the Baraibari Border Post, the number of BSF men killed in the deadliest border encounter with Bangladesh rose to 17.

Three Bangladeshi border guards from the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles were also killed in the skirmish on Wednesday and Thursday.

Officials in the capital Dhaka said the fragile cease-fire along Bangladesh's northwestern frontier with the Indian State of Assam appeared to be holding out at the weekend despite isolated firefights between the border forces of the two countries.

They said tension remained high around a disputed border observation post in the frontier Kurigram district. Local official sources said intermittent shelling was reported from the troubled border.

Sector commanders of the rival border forces have held two flag meetings since Friday, agreeing to stop the shooting to enable talks for a settlement of the sovereignty over Baraibari Border Post 430 kilometers northwest of Dhaka.

Last Wednesday's clashes were the fiercest border encounter between the two countries since Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan three decades ago.

Bangladeshi forces claimed they had repulsed a border invasion by the BSF.

Kurigram's district commissioner Sulaiman Chowdhury said more refugee camps had been opened to accommodate some 6,000 people from bordering villages taking shelter in the frontier town of Rowmari.

The attack on the northwestern border is seen as a backlash to an earlier invasion by Bangladeshi forces to reclaim three border outposts controlled by India in northeastern Sylhet district.

On April 16, Bangladeshi border guards forced the Indians to vacate a tiny hamlet Padua near the country's northeastern frontier.

The accord on a cease-fire was reached through diplomatic channels after both countries agreed to maintain the status quo on the border and resolve territorial disputes through talks.