BSF, Pakistan Rangers exchange sweets on Id-ul-Adha

The Border Security Force (BSF) and the Pakistan Rangers on Wednesday exchanged sweets at various points along the border on the occasion of Id-ul-Adha, the first time since the Pakistani side shunned the custom in 2019.

A BSF spokesperson here said, “An exchange of sweets took place between the BSF and the Pakistan Rangers on the occasion of Id at JCP [Joint Checkpost] Attari.” This lies across the Wagah border at Amritsar district in Punjab.

A similar exchange of sweets took place between the two forces along the Rajasthan front too, officials said.

The Pakistani side had unilaterally stopped the exchange after the Narendra Modi government abrogated the provisions of Article 370 of the Constitution, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, on August 5, 2019.

After the developments of August 2019, an offer of exchanging sweets was made by the BSF, but the Pakistani side did not reciprocate, the spokesperson added.

COVID-19 outbreak

The BSF spokesperson, however, said this custom was suspended last year due to the outbreak of COVID-19.

The BSF guards the around 2,290 km India-Pakistan International Border (IB) that runs north to south from Jammu, Punjab, Rajasthan and up to Gujarat on India’s western flank.

An exchange also took place along the border in Jammu. “This is the first exchange of sweets between the two border guarding forces [BSF and Pakistan Rangers] after the Pulwama incident [in 2019]. There was no cross-border shelling for long and farmers on both sides of the border have been able to carry out their farming activities peacefully,” the Jammu Frontier of the BSF said in a statement.

Forty Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were killed when their bus in a long convoy of over 70 vehicles plying from Jammu to Srinagar was bombed on February 14, 2019, by a Jais-e-Mohammed suicide bomber. Soon after, India carried out an aerial strike on a terrorist training camp of the group in Balakot, Pakistan.

The exchange of sweets is also undertaken by the two sides during festivals like Diwali, Id, Republic Day, Independence Day, BSF Raising Day on December 1 and Pakistan’s Independence Day on August 14.

India and Pakistan had on February 25 this year released a joint statement announcing a ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir, following talks between their Directors-General of Military Operations.

The two countries had earlier signed a ceasefire agreement in 2003, but it was repeatedly violated leading to deaths and injuries to civilians and troops on either side.

Meanwhile, a similar exchange of sweets continued as usual between the BSF and their Bangladesh counterpart, the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), at multiple locations along the 4,096 km IB on the eastern flank of the country.

“Both the border guarding forces share cordial and congenial relations. The exchange of sweets comes as a goodwill gesture and reflects true comradeship. It also helps in building and strengthening cordial relations,” the BSF south Bengal frontier headquartered in Kolkata said in a statement.

“It has been a long-running tradition between the two forces to exchange sweets on the festive occasions,” the BSF said.

The south Bengal frontier of the BSF guards about 903 km of the India-Bangladesh border along with the BGB.