Ceremony at border crossing sends message to terrorists
Print Edition
INDIA and Pakistan solemnly lowered their national flags at a dusk military ceremony on their main land border crossing yesterday, a day after a suicide attack killed at least 60 people on the Pakistani side.
India’s home ministry earlier said the daily flag-lowering ceremony would be suspended as a mark of respect for the dead — the first time the parade would have been called off since the countries went to war in 1971.
But later Pakistani officials changed their mind, deciding to go ahead with the ritual to send a message to the terrorists.
Just before dusk, at least 2,000 women, men and children gathered at the parade ground on the border crossing, some chanting “Death to terrorists” and “Long live Pakistan.”
The colorful show, where border guards in elaborate uniforms goose-step, shake hands brusquely across the borderline and scowl aggressively at each other, proceeded as usual amid heightened security.
“Today’s ceremony proved that terrorists cannot lower the spirit of the nation by their cowardly activities,” Corps Commander Lahore Lieutenant General Naveed Zaman said.
The deaths, and 110 injured, came when the explosion ripped through a car park about 500 meters from Pakistan’s border gate just as hundreds of people left the daily performance.
At least two Pakistani Taliban splinter groups have claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was revenge for the army’s operation against insurgents in North Waziristan.
The flag-lowering ceremony is extremely popular on both sides, with crowds daily packing out bleachers set up on either side of the gates adorned with large portraits of their founding fathers, Mahatma Gandhi on the Indian side and Mohammed Ali Jinnah on the Pakistani side.
The attack rattled people’s nerves in a region already beset by violence and insurgencies but despite reports that police found more explosives in the area many people came with their families to see the first flag-lowering since the attack.
Anwar Shaikh, 45, a Lahore resident, said: “I came here yesterday after the tragedy. Today, I came with my family to express solidarity with my country and the martyrs.
“We can give our lives to our country but would not surrender to terrorists.”
The last-minute decision to hold the ritual came too late for many hopeful spectators on the Indian side.
“We had confirmed to several tourists that the event will not take place for the next three days. So Indians did not turn up. Very few Indians, mainly locals came to see,” said a senior Indian border security official.
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