The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has issued an unconditional apology to the people of Arunachal Pradesh for the “inadvertent mistake” of using the wrong name of a place without any “mala fide intention”.
The organisation had attracted flak for “renaming” Kimin, a small town in the State’s Papum Pare district about 75 km from capital Itanagar, as Bilgarh of Assam, during a programme attended by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on June 17.
“The unfortunate incident is nothing more than an inadvertent mistake, just happened in the pressure of organising the event while racing against the time. In no way, BRO had even an iota of mala fide intention of hurting the sentiments of the people of Arunachal Pradesh. It should be taken as an unconditional apology, due to the emotive connection that BRO has with people of the state,” the organisation said in a statement on Saturday.
The BRO said the confusion was created due to miscommunication. It claimed that someone in their rank had mistakenly noted Kimin being in Assam during a casual discussion over the proposed event to inaugurate the 20 km Kimin-Potin road and 12 other BRO projects across the country.
The organisation insisted there were no orders from any authority concerned to hide the geographical location of Kimin for strategic reasons.
