India to resume border ceremony with Pakistan
AMRITSAR: India said Tuesday it would resume a daily border ceremony with neighboring Pakistan which it briefly halted earlier this month following the most serious conflict between the nuclear armed arch-rivals for decades.
At least 60 people died in fighting triggered by an April 22 attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi accused Islamabad of backing — a charge Pakistan denies.
India's Border Security force said the sunset ceremony on its side would be open to the media on Tuesday and to the general public on Wednesday at the Attari-Wagah land border in the northern state of Punjab.
Pakistan said it never stopped the ceremony, with its troops marching on its side of the border alone.
The ceremony however is expected to be a low-key affair with diplomatic measures against Pakistan still in place, including the closure of the land border.
For years, the ceremony at the Attari-Wagah border has been a popular tourist attraction.
Visitors from both sides come to cheer on soldiers goose-stepping in a chest-puffing theatrical show of pageantry.
The frontier was a colonial creation at the violent end of British rule in 1947 which sliced the sub-continent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
The daily border ritual has largely endured over the decades, surviving innumerable diplomatic flare-ups and military skirmishes.
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