BSF hands back 12-year-old Pakistani who entered India to drink water

A BSF spokesperson said that the boy, Mohammed Tanveer, resident of Dhari village in Pakistan’s Kasur district, was apprehended on Sunday by BSF troopers on guard duty with Punjab farmers who were tending to their crops in fields across the barbed wire fencing.

Amid heated cross-border ties, the Border Security Force (BSF) on Monday repatriated a 12-year-old Pakistani national who had inadvertently crossed into Indian territory in Punjab’s Ferozepur sector.

Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers standing guard during a night patrol near the fence at the India-Pakistan International Border at the outpost of Akhnoor sector, about 40 km from Jammu on Sunday. (Nitin Kanotra / HT Photo)

A BSF spokesperson said that the boy, Mohammed Tanveer, resident of Dhari village in Pakistan’s Kasur district, was apprehended on Sunday by BSF troopers on guard duty with Punjab farmers who were tending to their crops in fields across the barbed wire fencing.

The boy was apprehended in the area of responsibility of border outpost Dona Telu Mal in Ferozepur sector.

“He inadvertently crossed International Boundary and entered inside Indian territory. The individual was grazing his cattle in Pakistani territory near the IB and came inside Indian territory to drink water from a tubewell on Indian side as he was very thirsty,” the BSF spokesperson said.

He said that the Pakistan Rangers were contacted on Monday and Tanveer handed over to them on humanitarian grounds, having crossed the border inadvertently.