India Halts Pakistan Border Goose-Stepping Ahead Of Talks

Indian Border Security Force Jawans and Pakistani Rangers perform the flag off ceremony at the International Indo-Pak Wagah Border, 08 November 2006. Photo courtesy of Narinder Nanu and AFP.

by Staff Writers
Wagah (AFP) India, Nov 8, 2006
Indian troops guarding the country's only land transit point to Pakistan have halted an aggressive military ceremony ahead of a resumption of talks next week, officials said Wednesday. When troops from the nuclear-armed rivals shut the Wagah border post every sunset, they usually do so with an elaborate ceremony involving a furious goose-step and the slamming of gates.

The ceremony draws thousands of spectators every day, and even triggered an exchange of gunfire almost a decade ago.

But India's Border Security Force (BSF) said it was toning down its "body language".

"Soldiers have been told to refrain from high-rise stomping of feet," the BSF's Wagah commander, Pradeep Katyal, told reporters after Indian troops staged a "conventional drill" late Tuesday.

"The new gesture speaks of friendship while the earlier body language bordered on hostility -- a display of might," Katyal said.

BSF inspector general Arvind Ranjan said he had issued the orders to halt the air-kicking exercise.

"We should not fall into (the) trap and come out with uncalled postures when our counterparts tend to do so. We have to maintain dignity," he said.

Troops across the black-painted gates in Pakistan were responding to the Indian gesture, he told AFP.

"Pakistani Rangers have also started to respond," Ranjan said, adding the toned-down drill was linked to upcoming peace talks beginning on November 14.

The talks between the two nuclear rivals were put on hold following July train bombings that killed 186 people in India's financial capital Mumbai.

India said the bombers had links to Pakistan's spy agency, a charge denied by Islamabad.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir, since the subcontinent's 1947 independence from the British.

Source: Agence France-Presse

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