After a 10-day India-Pakistan ceasefire, the Border Security Force (BSF) will restart the Beating Retreat ceremony on Tuesday evening, though on a reduced scale on the Attari-Wagah, Hussainiwala, and Fazilka borders, all in the state of Punjab.
This is after a 12-day suspension due to heightened military tensions between the two countries.
Authorities informed IANS that there would not be a handshake among armed personnel on the Pakistani side, and the border gates would not be opened. However, spectators may still visit and witness the ceremony.
The ceremonies are to start at 6 p.m. at the Attari border along Amritsar, the Hussainiwala border in Ferozepur, and the Sadqi border in Fazilka.
The Border Area Development Front has also called upon the local people to reach Sadqi by 5:30 p.m. to witness the ceremony in large numbers.
It is under normal situations that the Beating Retreat ceremony draws hundreds of onlookers, of whom most are foreign tourists.
Since 1959, this legendary ritual has mesmerized spectators on both sides of the border at Amritsar with a sensational military drill and the lowering of Indian and Pakistani national flags at the stroke of evening.
During festive occasions like Diwali, Eid, Independence Day, and Republic Day celebrations, border troops usually exchange sweets.
Attari-Wagah Joint Check Post, around 30 km from Amritsar and 22 km from Lahore, Pakistan, has a spectator gallery where almost 25,000 spectators can watch the flag-lowering ceremony.
The place was shut down to the public from the beginning of March 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Also, India had already avoided the ceremony in 2019 because of a rise in ceasefire violations along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. Following the Indian military's surgical strikes in September 2016, BSF also ended the practice of giving sweets to the Pakistan Rangers.
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