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GUWAHATI, India: The Indian military said on Monday (September 7) that it asked its Chinese counterpart if five Indian civilians who disappeared from an eastern border state days ago were in its custody, while tension remains high on the western border. between rivals. .
Relations between nuclear-armed Asian giants have reached a multi-decade low since clashes on the western Himalayan border in June in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed.
Since then, both sides have stepped up monitoring of their 3,488-kilometer, largely unstable border.
The five missing men are from the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, also claimed by China, which calls it South Tibet, and the Indian military said it told the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) about them on Saturday.
“We spoke to them on the hotline and told them that some people were suspected of having crossed paths with them and we would appreciate it if you could return them, as we normally do,” Lieutenant Colonel Harsh Wardhan Pande, and spokesman for the Indian Ministry of Defense, he told Reuters.
“There is no sharp line through the forest or the mountains, so they keep moving here and there. So they could have gone there, it’s very normal.”
He said they hadn’t heard from the Chinese yet. The PLA could not immediately be reached for comment.
Meanwhile, a Tibetan member of an Indian special forces unit who was killed days ago in a mine explosion near the site of a border blast with Chinese troops in the western Himalayas was cremated on Monday.
READ: Death of Tibetan soldier near tense India-China border sheds light on covert unit
His death has provided a rare glimpse into a little-known group of elite high-rise warriors, primarily Tibetan refugees living in India.
