BSF: Armed militants spotted very close to Indian border on 3 occasions

New Delhi: In the wake of escalation in ceasefire violations along the Indo-Pak frontier in Jammu and Kashmir, BSF on Sunday said it has spotted armed terrorists ‘very close’ to the IB on at least ‘three occasions’ in the last few days and suspect the firings are an attempt to help them infiltrate into India.

The BSF also said that it was giving a "befitting reply" with a heavy intensity and volume of fire to the Pakistani firing and have clear instructions from the Home Ministry that there should be "retaliatory action".

"On at least three occasions, with the help of our hand-held thermal imaging gadgets, we have observed that few people in civil dress armed with weapons were moving very close to the International Border in the darkness of the night. When we fired, they retracted.

"We presume they were militants because why would a civilian, late in the night, venture along the IB?" BSF Director General D K Pathak told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.

"One of the main reasons for the increase in unprovoked firings from Pakistan looks to be infiltration (of militants). The firings are being done to facilitate infiltrators and last year during the same time Pakistan did so," the Border Security Force chief said.

The DG said their repeated requests for holding flag meetings with Pak Rangers has "not been responded to" till now by their counterparts.

"We have sent a number of 'protest notes' to the Rangers over these firings. The last one was sent last night," the DG said.

Pathak said as many as 25 BSF posts are under intense firing of Pakistani forces and the series of these violations began on August 16.

"There were a series of ceasefire violations few days prior to August 16 also," he said.