Twenty Indian soldiers are killed and 43 Chinese troops are injured or dead after brutal hand-to-hand fighting with stones and batons broke out at border point in Kashmir
- The 'violent face-off' took place in Galwan valley in Ladakh region on Monday
- India reported 20 fatalities in the battle that was fought with stones & batons
- China has reported 43 casualties, but did not specify how many had died
- The incident is first such confrontation between the two Asian giants since 1975
By
RYAN FAHEY and
HARRY HOWARD and
ROSS IBBETSON FOR MAILONLINE and
AP
PUBLISHED: 10:02 BST, 16 June 2020 | UPDATED: 18:56 BST, 16 June 2020
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Twenty Indian soldiers, including a colonel, have been killed and China has reported 43 casualties after brutal hand-to-hand combat broke out between the two sides at the Himalayan border.
The Indian army stated today that a 'violent face-off' erupted in the Galwan Valley in the northern Ladakh state on Monday night 'with casualties on both sides.'
Despite initially reporting just two deaths, the army this afternoon announced that the true death toll was 20 soldiers, including a colonel.
Chinese authorities reported 43 casualties but did not specify how many soldiers had died in the confrontation, ANI news agency reported.
Tensions have flared between the two nuclear-armed nations in recent months, but these are the first fatalities in decades.
NDTV reported that no shots were fired in the battle, but that soldiers attacked each other with sticks and batons on the Indian side of the border.
The army said in a statement late Tuesday that the two sides 'have disengaged' from the disputed Galwan area where they clashed overnight on Monday.
The 20 soldiers succumbed to injuries they suffered in the sub-zero temperatures of the high-altitude terrain.
Scroll down for video.
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Three Indian soldiers, including a senior army officer, were killed Monday night in a confrontation with Chinese forces along a disputed border area in the Himalayas (the red territory is controlled by India, and the beige and grey stripes, Aksai Chin, is Chinese but claimed by India)
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Indian soldiers erect a military bunker along the Srinagar-Leh National highway on June 16, 2020
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Colonel B Santosh Babu (pictured) was one of the officers reported dead in the confrontation on the Ladakh border today
India's military statement earlier today said: 'During the de-escalation process in Galwan Valley, a violent face-off took place last night with casualties. The loss of lives on the Indian side includes an officer and two soldiers.
'Senior military officials of the two sides are currently meeting at the venue to defuse the situation.'
Among the dead was Colonel B. Santosh Babu, Commanding Officer of the 16 Bihar regiment.
His mother Manjula told the
New Indian Express: 'I lost my son, I cannot bear it. But he died for the country and that makes me happy and proud.'
China has not commented on the deaths.
The incident is the first such confrontation between the two Asian giants since the 1975 Arunachal ambush, during which four Indian soldiers were killed along the disputed border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
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Indian army soldiers rest next to artillery guns at a makeshift transit camp before heading to Ladakh, near Baltal, southeast of Srinagar today
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An Indian Border Security Force soldier walks near a check post along the Srinagar-Leh National highway today
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Indian soldiers erect a military bunker along the Srinagar-Leh National highway today
The 1962 Sino-Indian War
Aksai Chin is located either in the Indian state of Ladakh or the Chinese region of Xinjiang.
It is an almost uninhabited high-altitude scrub land traversed by the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway.
The other disputed territory is hundreds of miles away to the east of Tibet.
The 1962 Sino-Indian War was fought on these two frontiers as Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru put it, a struggle over land where 'not even a blade of grass grows.'
Chinese motivations for the war centred on percieved efforts by India to subvert Beijing's interests in Tibet.
Just a few years before the war, the Indians had granted asylum to the Dalai Lama after the 1959 Tibetan uprising.
According to the CIA at the time, the Chinese 'were motivated to attack by one primary consideration - their determination to retain the ground on which PLA forces stood in 1962 and to punish the Indians for trying to take that ground.'
Indian motivations included, testing Chinese resolve, testing who the Soviets would back and to garner sympathy from the United States.
The Economist reported, suggesting something more serious was afoot.
The two sides have blamed each other but analysts say India's building of new roads in the region may have been the fuse for the dispute. Both sides have dispatched reinforcements and heavy equipment to the zone.
In the Galwan Valley soldiers have been locked in a weeks-long face-off. India's foreign ministry spokesman said in May: 'It is Chinese side that has recently undertaken activity hindering India's normal patrolling patterns.'
It is unclear how many troops the Chinese have in the region, former army colonel Ajai Shukla believes there to be several PLA brigades, which means thousands of men.
The bulk of these troops are likely positioned at the rear behind those leading the incursions into Indian territory.
The intrusions have been 'fast in-and-out' forays, according to
The Print, with around 40 to 60 Chinese men deployed.
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Activists of Sanskriti Bhchan Manch shout slogans as they stage a protest against China, holding posters of Chinese President Xi Jinping, in Bhopal, India, 16 June
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Indians burn images of Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bhopal today after news of the violence at the border broke
On May 25 the Chinese state-controlled Global Times said Indian troops had been trespassing on Chinese territory and wrote: 'The Galwan Valley region is Chinese territory.'
The Galwan Valley was formally handed back to the Indians after the war of 1962.
The Global Times report claimed that Indian troops were trying to erect illegal defence facilities since the beginning of May and that China had border controls in response to Indian provocations in the Galwan Valley.
One reason for the heightened tension could be a new road built to Daulat Beg Oldi, the world's highest airstrip and the site of an intense Sino-Indian dispute in 2013.
Indian army denies involvement in 'beating' of Chinese PLA soldier
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Believed to have been filmed in mid-May on the banks of Pangong Lake, a mile into Indian territory, footage purports to show Indian forces battering a People's Liberation Army soldier and smashing up a Chinese armoured car
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Pro-Beijing social media accounts recently posted images purporting to show Indian troops battered and bound with rope on the banks of a lake in the disputed region on the Himalayan border
The road allows for the rapid and vast movement of Indian troops into the region.
India says China is occupying 38,000 sq km of its territory.
In 2017, Indian troops
mobilised in the Doklam region near Bhutan after Chinese soldiers threatened to build a road there, which India's external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj described as a threat to India's security.
Later that year, soldiers of the two countries were seen fighting against each other near the Ladakh region in north west India, after 8,000 Indian troops were sent to
counter-act Chinese officers carrying out incursions on the Line of Actual Control.
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Troops from the two countries have been facing off along the disputed frontier for more than a month (file photo)
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Relations were believed to have eased following two meetings between Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) in recent years. Pictured: The pair at a meeting in India in 2014
Relations were believed to have eased following two meetings between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in recent years.
The pair met in the Chinese city of Wuhan in 2018 while they also had talks in Chennai, southern India last October.
The Indian and Chinese sides are separated by the LAC which is difficult to discern because rivers, lakes and snowcaps mean it can shift.
India recently built a new road along the LAC in Ladakh, which reportedly infuriated Beijing.
In the event of a conflict, the road could reportedly allow India to move men and material rapidly.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...Chinese-forces-disputed-Himalayan-border.html
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