ISLAMABAD: Director General Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Babar Iftikhar has said the work under the western border management regime will be completed in the stipulated period.
Briefing the media persons in Rawalpindi on Wednesday, he said ninety four percent work on the erection of fence along Pak-Afghan border has been completed whilst on Pak-Iran border, seventy one percent work on the fencing has been achieved.
The ISPR Director General emphasized the importance of fencing on Pak-Afghan border saying it is important for the security of people on both sides of the border as well as to regulate trade activities. He said it is not aimed at dividing the people but securing them.
He said people can cross the border from designated points, and this process will be eased in coming months. Major General Babar Iftikhar said the border management system with Afghanistan will be made more effective with the passage of time.
He said the blood of our martyrs is included in the erection of this fence. He said this is a fence of peace and it will be completed and stay intact. He deemed the recent uprooting of the fence by Taliban fighters as ‘one or two localised problems’, which he said is being discussed by the governments of both the countries.
He said sixty-seven new wings of FC Balochistan and FC Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were established in the year 2021 to further strengthen the border security. He said the process has also been started to establish six more wings. He said India has put the region’s peace at stake through its defence procurement. He said it will have negative effects on peace. He said India has committed false propaganda about infiltration on the Line of Control.
Major General Babar Iftikhar said in 2021, intelligence agencies issued 890 threat alerts, on the basis of which 70 percent incidents were averted and masterminds and their facilitators were unmasked. He said over 70,000 mines were recovered and lives were saved in tribal area, whereas many officials were injured and martyred during the process.
The ISPR Director General said, in 2021, 248 troops were martyred, whereas more than 100,000 ammunition were also seized. He said talks with the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were ‘on hold’ but the operations were continued. To a question about rumours of a deal with the PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif, Major General Babar Iftikhar said all this was a baseless speculation.
