With five flag meetings between Indian and Chinese army failing to resolve the\u00a0crisis over the latest PLA incursion\u00a0into Ladakh\u2019s Galwan Valley, the situation continues to remain \u201ctense\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Military sources told Eastern Link the \u201cPLA intruders are now constructing an observation post\u201d in the same location where they have set up several tents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sources said that the joint patrolling team of the army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) were \u201ccompletely overwhelmed when an unusually large body of PLA troops, eight times the usual size of a battalion (about 1,000 combat men) took over points nearthe Pangong Lake in the Galwan Valley\u201d of Ladakh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Easternlink has veried the information from two different sources in the Army and ITBP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTheir numbers were huge and we could not figure out that their intention would beto grab land,\u201d the sources said, adding that \u201cthis stand-off may continue far longerthan what happened at Doklam in 2017.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, reliable sources in Sikkim have told Eastern Link that since the 2017 incursion of the PLA into Doklam, close to the Sikkim-Tibet-Bhutan trijunction, the PLA has constructed overground and underground bunkers \u201cwhich weren\u2019t there earlier\u201d, besides completing the half-laid road leading close to the Indian side of the border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Confirmation of this was not yet available from military sources but attested to by graziers and local Bhutanese villagers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Disclosing that both the army and ITBP have QRTs (quick reaction teams) in and around the Galwan Valley, the sources said that \u201cwhenever the PLA patrols neared our side of the border, we would show them flags and they would retreat\u201d. In fact, the Galwan Valley area, including the Pangong Lake, was never a flashpoint in the past, especially in the last 10 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The border in this area of Ladakh is mutually agreed upon and ratied with previous history of conflict or clashes, the sources claimed.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
An Indian Air Force (IAF) \u2018Advanced Landing Ground\u2019 (ALG) at Chushul is barely 6 kms from the flashpoint zone, sources said, available for use for heavy airlift transport like C-130 transport planes but not fighters. Recalling a minor clash between ITBP troops and PLA men sometime in 2012, defence sources said that \u201cthat happened in some other axis in Leh\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ITBP, with six to seven battalions in Leh and the troops from the army\u2019s 14 Corps, would jointly patrol the Pangong Lake even when it would be frozen during the winters. \u201cThe ITBP used boats to patrol the lake when the ice melted,\u201d the sources said, adding that the current point of the stand-off is located at an altitude of over 14,000 feet. \u201cIt is largely barren, though this is the time when tourists from India start visiting Pangong Lake,\u201d the sources said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Revealing that some army and ITBP jawans were badly injured when they were beaten up by the Chinese soldiers, the defence sources said that the clash that preceded the \u201cforcible setting up of tents and the construction of an observation post\u201d was the result of \u201cvery aggressive action\u201d by the PLA troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sources admit that the PLA soldiers did \u201ccapture\u201d Indian army and ITBP troops before causing them physical injuries and subsequently releasing them the same day.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The Indian and Chinese soldiers are now separated by 500-600 metres of barren land and the former have also set up tents since the incursion, the sources said. The army top brass and the national security bureaucracy are now wondering whether the PLA incursion is a precursor to a larger tactical and strategic move, close to the Nepalese move to cock a snook at India over the disputed border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Source:<\/strong> <\/em>THE EASTERN LINK<\/a><\/em> | <\/em>THE QUINT<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With five flag meetings between Indian and Chinese army failing to resolve the\u00a0crisis over the latest PLA incursion\u00a0into Ladakh\u2019s Galwan Valley, the situation continues to remain \u201ctense\u201d. Military sources told Eastern Link the \u201cPLA intruders are now constructing an observation post\u201d in the same location where they have set up several tents. The sources said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26090,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}