The Indian Army has brought its front-line tanks and Infantry Fighting Vehicles (ICVs) to strategic heights held by its soldiers on the southern shore of Pangong Tso in eastern Ladakh, in response to the intimidating military movements of the People’s Army. Liberation Committee (EPL). in the theater, where the conflict is below the threshold of a shooting war but could take any trajectory, senior government officials told HT on Wednesday.
The PLA is parading its tank squads, mechanized infantry squads and thousands of soldiers in the area in a show of force to threaten the Indian Army after it quickly occupied key heights to prevent the PLA from seizing Indian territory on the 29th. August, officials said. , requesting anonymity.
The Chinese PLA has deployed 5,000 to 6,000 troops in the area and the armed forces are fully prepared to deal with any contingency, they added.
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“The PLA lines up between 20 and 30 tanks, ICVs and thousands of soldiers almost daily in the Spanggur area. It is nothing more than postures and we would be concerned if the military elements were not visible and hidden in the undulating folds of the terrain, ”said a senior official.
China has deployed considerable military resources in the eastern Ladakh theater, including 50,000 soldiers, 150 aircraft, tanks, heavy artillery, missiles and air defense systems, with India matching every move from the neighbor.
The Indian Army has also taken control of key heights dominating PLA deployments on Finger 4 ridge on the north shore of Pangong Tso, officials said. “The Indian soldiers are just a few hundred meters from the Chinese troops on finger 4,” they said.
“If military capabilities are measured, the combat ratio is 1: 1. If China brings in more reinforcements, so will we. The Galwan Valley skirmish showed them that they have to pay a price for their actions. If China wants to start a war, both sides will have to pay a price, ”the officials said.
“A shooting war does not break out overnight. Many actions happen before that: war of words, layoffs, skirmishes, minor conflicts and other punctures. We have not yet reached that stage. While we do not believe that China wants to start a war, nowhere are we ill-prepared, “the officials said.
The moves come as India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar is meeting his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Moscow on Thursday. to seek a diplomatic resolution to the deadlock.
The Indian military said on Tuesday that Chinese troops fired into the air on September 7 to intimidate their soldiers who had commanding heights near a strategic mountain pass in eastern Ladakh during a failed attempt to approach an outpost controlled by India, with bullets flying into the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) for the first time in 45 years. The last recorded incident when bullets were fired at the LAC was in October 1975, when the PLA ambushed an Indian patrol in the Tulung La sector of Arunachal Pradesh, shooting dead four soldiers.
Twenty Indian soldiers and an undisclosed number of PLA soldiers were killed on June 15 in a seven-hour conflict in the Galwan Valley, but no shots were fired in that deadly skirmish.
Experts said that the situation across LAC was volatile and that things could go wrong.
“The key to how things will move forward from here is whether there is a breakthrough in the talks. While both sides don’t want a gun battle, local dynamics on the ground sometimes have a life of their own. That is the real danger when thousands of soldiers face each other, ”said former Northern Army commander Lt. Gen. DS Hooda (retired).
The Indian Army controls the ridge positions on the southern shore of Pangong Tso allowing it to fully dominate the sector and keep an eye on Chinese military activity, with the most significant heights held by India at Rezang La and Reqin Pass, where the PLA is making desperate attempts to regain lost ground.
The military has marked the perimeter of the positions it occupies with barbed wire and would not hesitate to retaliate if the PLA tries to cross that red line, officials said. “During the talks, the PLA emphasizes that there should be no night movements or mountain maneuvers, but it does exactly the opposite on the ground. What is happening in the Ladakh theater is being controlled by its top leaders and cannot be attributed to the exuberance of the local commanders, ”said the officials cited in the first instance.
On the north bank of Pangang Tso, before the PLA took positions on finger 4, the army was patrolling up to finger 8 which New Delhi considers to be within Indian territory. The new posts taken by the PLA have reduced the reach of the Indian patrols. Fingers 4 and 8 are eight kilometers apart. The Indian claim line in this sector extends up to Finger 8, while the Chinese claim goes up to Finger 4.
The top Indian and Chinese commanders are likely to meet soon to reduce military tensions in eastern Ladakh. Both sides are currently working to finalize the date of the meeting between officers with the rank of corps commander who have met several times but failed to break the deadlock.
“We want the talks in the military and diplomatic negotiations to be successful. The feeling we got from the recent meeting between the defense ministers of India and China in Moscow was that the Chinese don’t want a war … But why the Chinese are opening so many fronts, we don’t understand, ”the officials said.
The latest tensions in eastern Ladakh come days after Defense Minister Rajnath Singh asked China, in a face-to-face meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe in Moscow, to strictly respect LAC and not try to change. unilaterally the status quo. and working with India to achieve a complete disconnect from all areas of friction in the sensitive sector.
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