After giving a befitting reply to misadventures of Pakistan Rangers along the International Border, senior officers of Border Security Force (BSF) on Friday issued them a fresh warning to immediately stop ‘unprovoked’ incidents of ceasefire violations, targeting of civilian areas and sniping incidents else India would strongly ‘hit back’ .
“We will not tolerate such provocative acts. It is unacceptable to us. We will strongly hit back if these violations were repeated.” This strongly worded message was conveyed by India to Pakistan at a sector commander level flag meeting held in Suchetgarh area of RS Pura.
The flag meeting was requested by the Pakistan rangers and was convened after a gap of six months. Previous sector commander level meeting was held on 9 March 2017.
During the meeting the Indian side was led by P S Dhiman, DIG BSF Jammu Sector while Pakistan rangers were represented by Brig Amjad Hussain, Sector Commander Chenab Rangers, Sialkot Punjab, Pakistan.
The International border across Jammu frontier was tense since first week of September 2017 following frequent incidents of 'unprovoked' ceasefire violations, sniping incidents in which two India jawans were martyred and targeting of civilian areas leading to loss of human lives and property. Thousands of border residents had to shift their families to relief centres and other safe places to ensure their safety during intense mortar shelling. At least 20 Border posts of BSF along Ramgarh sector of Samba, Arnia, Bisnah and RS Pura sectors were targeted by the Pakistan rangers while 40 villages were adversely affected due to crorss border firing.
In a written statement issued to the press BSF spokesman of Jammu frontier said, "During the sector commander level flag meeting BSF strongly objected on dastardly acts of snipping of two BSF Soldiers namely late Ct Brijendra Bahadur and Ct K K Appa Rao on 14 Sept and 25 Aug 2017 respectively while performing duty on forward duty points along the border security fence by Pak Rangers and further carrying out unprovoked Cross border firing and shelling on number of Indian border villages targeting innocent civilian and their properties".
During the flag meeting which lasted over one and half hours both sides agreed to maintain peace and tranquillity along the international border.
"Pak Rangers also assured their BSF counterparts that they would take required measures to maintain peace at border while requesting BSF to exercise restrain in order to ensure minimum loss of civilian lives on the Pakistani side",the BSF spokesman said.
