Snow-covered mountain range seen from a passenger plane in Ladakh (Archive)
Leh:
Two Indian officials said Chinese troops were laying a network of fiber optic cables south of Pangong Lake in Ladakh, suggesting they were digging for the long term despite high-level talks aimed at resolving a standoff there.
Such cables, which would provide forward troops with secure lines of communication with bases in the rear, have recently been detected south of Pangong Tso Lake in Ladakh, a senior government official said.
China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to questions about the matter from Reuters, while defense officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
Thousands of Indian and Chinese troops backed by tanks and planes are at an awkward stalemate along a 70-kilometer-long frontline south of the lake.
A third Indian official said on Monday that there have been no significant withdrawals or reinforcements from either side since the foreign ministers of the two countries met last week.
“He’s as tense as before,” he said.
Above Leh, the main city of Ladakh, Indian Air Force fighter jets flew all morning, their engines rumbling and echoing through the valley surrounded by arid brown mountains.
“Our biggest concern is that they have laid fiber optic cables for high-speed communications,” the first official said, referring to the southern shore of the lake, where Indian and Chinese troops are only a few hundred meters apart at some points. .
“They have been laying fiber optic cables on the southern shore at breakneck speed,” he said.
Indian intelligence agencies noticed similar cables north of Pangong Tso Lake about a month ago, the second government official said.
The first government official said authorities were alerted to such activity after satellite images showed unusual lines in the sand of the high-altitude deserts south of Pangong Tso.
These lines were judged by experts, and corroborated by foreign intelligence agencies, as communication cables laid in trenches, he said, even near the Spanggur gap, between the hills where soldiers recently fired into the air for the first time in decades.
Officials say a buildup of border infrastructure on their side likely also played a role in the months-long confrontation.
A former military intelligence official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the fiber optic cables offered communications security as well as the ability to send data such as photos and documents.
“If you talk into the radio, you can get trapped. Communications over fiber optic cables are secure,” he said.
The Indian military still relies on radio communications, the first official said, although he said it was encrypted.
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