India, Pak agree to prevent cross-border firing

India and Pakistan today agreed to prevent cross-border firing along the International Border in Jammu and Kashmir and promised to take all steps to "nip in the bud" such instances.

India and Pakistan on Thursday agreed to prevent cross-border firing along the International Border in Jammu and Kashmir and promised to take all steps to "nip in the bud" such instances.

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Both the forces will work to ensure that such ceasefire violations do not take place at all, Director General of BSF UK Bansal and chief of Pakistan Rangers Maj Gen Rizwan Akhtar told a joint press conference at the conclusion of their four-day talks in New Delhi.

"We talked in detail (on the issue of cross border firing)...This should not happen. We will better the mechanism, we will ensure that those parameters that we have discussed here (during the meeting) will be told to every trooper on the border and we believe that we will have better results," Akhtar said after signing a joint record of discussions of the meet here between the two border guarding forces.

Endorsing the Pakistan Rangers DG's statement, Bansal said that every effort will be made to ensure that while first of all no such instance of firing along the border takes place and if at all it (ceasefire violation) happens, such an instance will be "nipped in the bud" so that it does not aggravate.

"We have existing methods of flag meetings and border talks. We will use these modalities and with the joint confidence that we both are in favour such instances should be controlled immediately. With this mutual confidence the border commanders will deal with this issue," Bansal said.

While replying to a question on fake Indian currency being pumped into India from across the border, Akhtar denied the charge, saying Islamabad was not into such kind of activities.

"No it is not correct to say that fake currency is being pumped (from across the border)...Fake currency can be made anywhere in the world...It can be manufactured in India...The maximum consumption of fake Indian currency is in India only," he claimed.