[ad_1]
KOLKATA: Several Indian and Chinese soldiers were injured in a high-altitude cross-border clash that involved punching fights and stone throwing in a remote but strategically important mountain pass near Tibet, the Indian army said on Sunday (May 10).
There have been long-standing border tensions between nuclear-armed neighbors, with a bitter war waged by the state of Arunachal Pradesh in northeast India in 1962.
“The aggressive behavior of the two parties resulted in minor injuries to the troops. It was stone throwing and arguments that ended in a fist fight,” the spokesperson for the Eastern Command of the Indian Army, Mandeep Hooda, told AFP.
Saturday’s “clash” in the Naku La sector, near the 4,572-meter Nathu La crossing in the north-eastern state of Sikkim, which borders Bhutan, Nepal and China, was resolved after local “dialogue and interaction” Hooda said.
“Temporary and short-term confrontations between border guard troops occur when the limits are not resolved,” he added.
About 150 soldiers were involved in the confrontation, the Press Trust of India reported.
There have been numerous clashes and fights between Chinese and Indian soldiers, including one near the Ladakh region in north-western India, captured on video in 2017, where troops were seen throwing blows and stones.
In 2017, there was a high-altitude clash in the Doklam region of Bhutan for two months after the Indian army sent troops to prevent China from building a highway there.
Relations since the Doklam showdown between the two Asian giants appeared to improve after talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Wuhan, China in 2018.
The two men also met last October in Chennai, South India.
China still claims some 90,000 square kilometers of territory under New Delhi’s control.
