“It is to inform that the Joint Retreat Ceremony at Petrapole - Benapole scheduled on 02nd Oct 2013 is postponed due to some unavoidable official commitments of VVIPs of both the countries,” the BSF press release on Tuesday said..

This is for the first time, the BSF band is displaying their performance at Central Park, Cannaught Place, New Delhi on October 2013 from 1800 hours to 2000 hours on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti for public entertainment.

The BSF Band will uplift the morale of personnel through their music which is flavoured with patriotic fervour that gives an opportunity to civilians and tourists to witness and experience the rich music, steeped in tradition and history of the armed forces.

The evening air on Cannaught Place is likely to be filled with reverberation of drum beats, trumpets and bag pipes as the Bands give a symphonic display of martial music.

Earlier, it was planned that on this historic day of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, India and Bangladesh will witness bonhomie at the border. The Home Ministers of two countries will witness a historic cultural extravaganza between the neighbours.

A glittering and dazzling spectacle of ‘Retreat Ceremony’at Petrapole in West Bengal on the Indian side of the border with Bangladesh modeled on the line of India’s famous crowd pulling retreat ceremony being held with Pakistan Rangers at Attari-Wagah in Amritsar in Punjab was planned as per earlier schedule.

As per earlier plan this October 2 ceremony at Petrapole was slated to see the troops of the Border Security Force (BSF) and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), conduct the drill in unison and synchronized coordination in full regalia at sunset, lowering the respective National Flags – can rightly be termed as the country's first 'Wagah in the East'.

BSF Director General Subhash Joshi and Maj.BGB Director General Gen. Aziz Ahmed Khan were slated to be present besides several dignitaries of both the countries.

The ceremony was planned to be thrown open to the public at 1330 hours onwards for three and half hours plus. This would have been the first retreat ceremony between the two countries to be held on the lines of what happens between India and Pakistan along Wagah post in Punjab, sans simulated angry looks by border guards and heavy stomping of foot.

Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde was expected to be present with his Bangladeshi counterpart at the Petrapole-Benapole border in West Bengal to inaugurate the ceremony.

The maiden ceremony, was scheduled to include ceremonial lowering of flags in the evening, to be conducted by the border guards of the two countries - the Border Security Force (BSF) and Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) dressed in full regalia.

The BSF, on the India side, would create required infrastructure for the people to witness the event and will upgrade the logistics over a period of time. The ceremony, according to sources would have included renditions by famous Bengali poet Kazi Nazrul Islam and Nobel laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore.

The proposal was first mooted in 2011 and it was pursued by the current officials in both the forces with Joshi giving special focus to the task in getting clearances from the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Similar ceremony was also planned to be held at three other places later at specified dates and at specified places like Changrabandha-Burimari border (Tripura area) and Akhaura and Phulbari-Banglabandha frontiers (West Bengal area) which are part of the 4,096-km India-Bangladesh border.

India and Pakistan have been traditionally hosting the flag-lowering ceremony at the Wagah-Attari border and the event is attended by a large number of people from both the countries as well as foreign nationals. Greetings and gifts are exchanged by officials at this frontier on occasions like Independence Day and festivals like Diwali and Eid.