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With Meghalaya's Pyrdiwah village remaining under the occupation of the Bangladesh Rifles, the gun-battle between Border Security Force and BDR continued in Assam's Dhubri district on the Assam-Bangladesh border on Thursday.
Firing was taking place at New Sahapara and Boraibari villages, a three-hour journey by boat from Dhubri and close to the Bangladesh border, Dhubri Deputy Commissioner Gayatri Baruah told PTI.
Baruah said she did not have any information on casualties or injuries in the firing on a 'lower scale' at Mankachar, where a red alert was sounded on Wednesday by the BSF.
As many as 16 BSF personnel were killed in a gun-battle with the BDR at Boraibari on Wednesday, prompting authorities to sound a red alert on the international border with Bangladesh along Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and North Bengal.
"Pyrdiwah belongs to India and if they (BDR) do not agree to leave the area peacefully, we will push them back by force", Inspector General, BSF headquarters, Shillong, V K Gaur said.
"Our jawans have taken position in three tiers fully equipped with mortars, machine guns and light machine guns," Gaur said.
Efforts to break the Pyrdiwah impasse at a flag meeting between the BSF and BDR remained unresolved, Gaur said.
Another flag meeting between the BSF and BDR over the continued firing in Boraibari is scheduled for later on Thursday, official sources said in Guwahati.
Gaur said the then brigade commander of 181 Brigade of India and the Director General of East Pakistan Rifles signed the agreement on January 6, 1960 which stated that the Pyrdiwah village was under the control of India since independence. The BSF had all documents to prove it.
In Meghalaya, the red alert was sounded by the BSF between Dawki and Lyngkhat sectors along the international border to face the standoff at Pyrdiwah.
Meghalaya Home Minister T H Rangad told PTI that there had been no firing in these sectors since Monday and the status quo was being maintained at Pyrdiwah.
The 1286-km long Tripura-Cachar-Mizoram border and the 1066 km North Bengal frontier with Bangladesh, had also been put under maximum alert.
PTI
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