Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday sent out a strong message to Pakistan over the continuing spate of unprovoked ceasefire violations. (Express Photo by Prem Nath Pandey)
Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday sent out a strong message to Pakistan over the continuing spate of unprovoked ceasefire violations along the border in Jammu and Kashmir saying the government will never seek answers from security forces on “how they chose to retaliate” to such actions.
Delivering a keynote speech at the Border Security Force’s 16th investiture ceremony at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi, Singh in a veiled reference to Pakistan said it was an “irony” that even when India wanted peace with its neighbours, a particular country was not “mending its ways”.
“This (Pakistan’s unprovoked ceasefire violations) can be a subject of research and these activities of the neighbour are hard to understand,” the Home Minister said. Singh also commended the Border Security Force (BSF) for giving a “befitting reply” to the unprovoked firings along the border in the Jammu region for the last few days.
He said that while the government has directed the BSF and other security forces on the border, like the Army, to never fire the first bullet, “no one will ask them how they chose to retaliate”. “If you (the BSF) are fired upon, then you have to decide what is the best course of reaction or action. You have done this with remarkable responsibility in the past,” the minister said.
Over 700 incidents of shelling and firing along the IB and the LoC has been reported in Jammu and Kashmir this year, which have left 39 people, including 18 security personnel, dead and scores injured. At least seven people, including two BSF jawans and an infant, have been killed and 18 others injured in the latest ceasefire violation by Pakistan in the Jammu region.