Pakistan Rangers delegation to visit India this month

A high-level delegation of officers of the Pakistan Rangers will visit India later this month for talks with their Indian counterpart Border Security Force (BSF), Indian media reported on Sunday.

The Rangers delegation, led by Maj Gen Bilal Akbar (DG Rangers Sindh) and Maj Gen Khan Tahir Javed Khan (DG Rangers Punjab), is expected to travel to India via the Wagah-Attari border on March 25 and will hold talks for five days with their Indian counterparts at the BSF headquarters in New Delhi.

"The Pakistan Rangers are arriving in India for the annual DG-level talks for five days from March 25 to March 29. The last time the two sides met was in December 2013 when the BSF travelled to Lahore," the Press Trust of India quoted a top Indian Home Ministry official as saying.

The Indian side will be led by BSF Director General D K Pathak.

The annual DG-level talks have been pending for over a year after a spate of ceasefire violations and a spell of strained ties between the neighboring countries.

The two sides are expected to take up the matter of ceasefire violations during the DG-level talks.

Last week, Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar visited Pakistan for the first senior-level dialogue between the two countries in a year.

The talks, focusing on bilateral and regional issues including Kashmir, were hailed as "positive and constructive”, with the two sides agreeing to work together to address mutual concerns.