India-China: A violent clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers occurred in Galwan in June
New Delhi:
China has said that Indian soldiers fired warning shots after crossing the Royal Line of Control (LAC) on the southern shore of Lake Pangong in Ladakh. “The Chinese border guards were forced to take countermeasures to stabilize the situation,” said a spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army.
It is not clear what these countermeasures were. There has been no response from India yet.
A spokesman for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army said that the Indian army “illegally crossed LAC and entered the southern shore of Lake Pangong and the mountainous area of Shenpao.”
“During the operation, the Indian military brazenly launched threats to Chinese border guards patrol personnel who had made statements, and Chinese border guards were forced to take countermeasures to stabilize the situation on the ground,” the statement read .
Calling it “serious provocations of a very bad nature”, China said: “We request the Indian side to immediately stop dangerous actions.”
Twice in the past two weeks, Chinese troops had engaged in provocative actions on the southern shore of Ladakh’s Pangong Lake. But India was “able to prevent these attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo” in LAC, the Foreign Ministry had said, stressing that there were no physical confrontations.
The last action on August 31 was a daytime operation during which the Indian soldiers were surrounded by Chinese soldiers, who were trying to regain the heights that are being dominated by the Indian army.
Sources said Chinese soldiers were warned not to proceed and Chinese military commanders in talks with an Indian brigadier at the time were asked to tell their forces to withdraw to avoid any escalation.
An earlier attempt to carry out “provocative military movements to change the status quo” near Pangong Lake took place on the night of August 29, in violation of the rules prohibiting night operations.
A large number of Chinese troops, deployed along the southern shore of Pangong Lake, had moved west to unilaterally occupy the area, the sources said.
This is a new area that the Chinese troops transgressed as talks began between the armies of both nations to resolve the tension in LAC that reached its peak with the clash in the Galwan Valley on June 15, in which 20 soldiers Indians were killed in action.
In July, following talks between national security adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, India and China had started the disengagement process, which, however, remained incomplete.
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