Pakistan and India have agreed to make joint efforts to check smuggling on the borders and cool down aggressive gestures during the process of daily lowering of their flags at Wahgah border check post. This was stated by Director Geneal (DG) Pakistan Rangers Punjab Major General Muhammad Yaqoob Khan and the Indian DG Border Security Force (BSF) Shri Raman Srivastav at a joint press conference here on Saturday after their five-day bi-annual meeting.
Shri Raman Srivastav led the Indian delegation consisting of 19 members while the Pakistani delegation was headed by Pakistan Rangers Punjab DG Major General Muhammad Yaqoob Khan during the talks at the Rangers Headquarters. Representatives of Anti-Narcotics Force, Survey of India and officials of Pakistan Rangers Punjab and Sindh were also attended the meetings.
The meeting discussed various issues including unprovoked firing, killing of innocent people by the Indian Border Security Force who mistakenly cross the border, illegal defence constructions, and violation of Pakistan air space by Indian helicopters and illegal border crossings and smuggling in connivance with BSF.
The release and repatriation of Pakistani prisoners from Indian jails was also part of the agenda of the bi-annual meeting. It also discussed measures to check and control smuggling and intelligence sharing between the two countries to curb drug smuggling on the border. In response to a question, Major General Yaqoob said most of the issues between the two countries could not be solved unless the Kashmir problem and the water issue were resolved.
The BSF DG said they could only discuss these border issues in such a bi-annual as the big issues were in the domain of governments only. To a question, he ruled out the presence of five factories of heroin producing in India and said heroin is smuggled into India from different borders.
When asked about the release of prisoners, he said most of the prisoners give fake names so their identification and release becomes difficult. He said concern departments of both countries should provide data to them so that the prisoners could be released from jails of the two countries. He said he had arrived with a message of peace and love and the Pakistani government, people, media and rangers had reciprocated the feelings.