Saying that it did not expect Pakistan to carry out such an intensified shelling and firing in Jammu on the day of Eid on Monday, the Border Security Force has assured that the force will take whatever retaliatory action it has to.
“Whatever retaliatory action BSF has to take, will be undertaken,” director general of BSF DK Pathak told reporters in Jammu.
“Our force is a professional force and we will respond very professionally to the Pakistani firing,” he said.
Pathak flew to Jammu from New Delhi and rushed to RS Pura border belt to chair a meeting of top officers of the Jammu Frontier to review the situation emerging in view of shelling and firing in the Arnia belt.
“The incident is not a good incident. There has been casualties, but we have responded to it,” Pathak said. “We were not expecting that they will resort to such an intensified shelling and firing on Eid,” he added.
“Every ceasefire violation has been engineered by them and we are not responsible for any ceasefire violation,” he said.
In one of the worst ceasefire violations by Pakistan, five villagers were killed and 34 injured today in heavy mortar shelling and firing from across the international border and line of control in Jammu and Poonch sectors.
Condemning the shelling on civilians in Arnia belt of Jammu that left five dead, J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah on Monday said that the targeting of civilian areas exposed the frustration of the Pakistani government after its failure to gain international attention on the Kashmir issue.
“They (the Pakistani leadership) have nothing else to speak, but only Kashmir. Whenever they go abroad, they try to raise only Kashmir issue, but every time they miserably fail to get international attention. The cross-border shelling is an indication of their frustration,” he told reporters after meeting civilians injured in the shelling at the Government Medical College Hospital in Jammu.
——-PTi