The Pakistan Rangers called up its counterpart, Border Security Force (BSF), to seek a halt to the firing and shelling along the International Border in Jammu.
A commander of Pakistan Rangers phoned a BSF officer on Saturday night and urged that Pakistan’s forward posts not be targeted as the incessant firing was causing damage to civilians.
The BSF released a 19-second thermal-imaging footage that showed the destruction of a Pakistani post across the border. A BSF officer refused to reveal the location, but said it was destroyed in the past few days. “Our officer told Pakistan Rangers that we were only responding to the unprovoked firing from across the border. We did not fire first,” he said.
Two BSF soldiers were killed in the latest round of unprovoked firing in Jammu last week. The BSF said the current spell of cross-border firing was expected as the harvest season was over. A senior official said this was the “third spell” of heavy firing from across the border this year; the first two occurred in January. The firing also coincided with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the State on Saturday.
