More unprovoked firing in Shakargarh Sector

SIALKOT: The Indian Border Security Force (BSF) on Thursday resorted to unprovoked firing on Pakistani border villages in the Shakargarh Sector of the Sialkot Working Boundary.
According to senior officials of the Chenab Rangers, the Indian BSF again targeted the civilian population. The BSF continued firing in the Shakargarh Sector intermittently almost the entire night between Wednesday and Thursday. The Chenab Rangers retaliated effectively and made the Indian guns silent.
Meanwhile, the two Rangers personnel – Naik Muhammad Riaz Shakir and Lance Naik Muhammad Safdar – martyred on Wednesday were laid to rest with a guard of honour in their native areas.On the other hand, Punjab Rangers DG Maj Gen Khan Tahir Javed Khan termed the attack “fraudulent, inhuman and unethical”.
According to sources privy to a meeting held on Thursday, Maj Gen Khan Tahir told the participants that the Rangers had been targeted when they were going to attend a flag meeting arranged on the request of the BSF officials.
It was an unprecedented and unique event in history, he said, adding that the behaviour of BSF soldiers was unethical, inhuman and non-professional as they did not allow to even recover the injured Rangers men, who later embraced martyrdom.
The Rangers DG said the act had created a trust deficit between two neighbouring countries and lauded the bravery, courage and resilience of Rangers, who managed to retrieve the bodies risking their lives amid indiscriminate firing by Indian border guards, which lasted for many hours.
AFP adds: Pakistan and India on Thursday exchanged lists of their nuclear sites under an agreement barring them from attacking each other’s atomic facilities in the event of war, officials said.
The annual New Year’s Day exchange was established under a 1988 agreement. The neighbours, who have fought three wars, have also set up a telephone hotline to prevent accidental nuclear conflict.
The lists were handed over to officers of the Pakistani and Indian high commissions in New Delhi and Islamabad, according to a statement by Pakistan’s Foreign Office.The two countries also exchanged lists of each other´s civilian prisoners under a 2008 agreement.
Meanwhile, a senior officer from India’s Border Security Force said that Indian border forces killed four Pakistani interior-ministry troops on New Year’s Eve.He said that Wednesday’s incident, on the international border in Jammu and Kashmir, followed the killing earlier in the day of an Indian border guard. “We have retaliated effectively and four Pakistani Rangers have been killed along the International Border in Samba sector this evening,” said Rakesh Sharma, BSF inspector general for the Jammu Frontier.
“As Pakistani Rangers suffered casualties, they waved white flags, asking BSF to stop the firing so that they could lift the bodies of the dead men. We stopped the firing after their request,” Sharma said.