Dozens of casualties in India-China face-off
20 INDIAN TROOPS KILLED IN FIRST MAJOR CLASH IN 53 YEARS
Twenty Indian army troops, including officers, were killed and more than a dozen captured by Chinese soldiers in a clash along the disputed India-China border, Indian officials said, raising tensions between the world’s two most populous nations.
Both sides blamed each other for Monday night’s clash in the precipitous, rocky terrain of the strategically important Galwan Valley, between China’s Tibet and India’s Ladakh region, which analysts described as “worrying”.
Sources said that the death toll is likely to go up as many soldiers have been grievously injured. India had earlier put the toll at three dead. Later, Indian Army in a statement said that 17 more “who were critically injured in the line of duty at the stand-off location and exposed to sub-zero temperatures in the high altitude terrain have succumbed to their injuries, taking the total that were killed in action to 20”.
20 soldiers captured
The deaths were the first since the last major border clash in 1967 between the nuclear-armed neighbours who have been unable to settle the dispute along their lengthy frontier. A senior Indian army officer said more than 20 Indian soldiers had also been captured and many might still be in Chinese custody. In Beijing, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Zhao Lijian, said
Indian forces had twice crossed the border illegally Monday and attacked Chinese personnel.
‘43 Chinese casualties’
New Delhi’s foreign ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava hit back, saying the clash arose from “an attempt by the Chinese side to unilaterally change the status quo” on the border. Indian television channels reported that 43 Chinese soldiers had been either killed or injured as well, citing high-level Indian government sources.
At least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a “violent face-off” with Chinese troops on the disputed border, the Indian Army said yesterday, reporting the first casualties in 53 years to result from a clash between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
Indian government sources said no shots were fired but a physical fight broke out between the two sides with soldiers using batons and throwing stones, which resulted in the casualties.
China blamed India for the clash on Monday and editor of the government-controlled
Global Times said the Chinese military had also suffered casualties.
India and China have been locked in a stand-off in the Galwan valley in western Himalayas for weeks with both accusing each other of trespassing into the other’s territory.
Talks to pull back hundreds of troops deployed in the remote region have been held over the last ten days but no breakthrough had emerged.
“During the de-escalation process under way in the Galwan Valley, a violent face-off took place yesterday night with casualties on both sides,” the Indian army said in a statement.
“The loss of lives on the Indian side includes an officer. Senior military officials of the two sides are currently meeting at the venue to defuse the situation.” The officer who died was identified as Colonel B Santosh Babu, the sources said.
India and China fought a brief border war in 1962 and have not been unable to settle their border dispute despite talks spread over two decades.
Border guards have had skirmishes, even fist fights when patrols have confronted each other, but there has been no loss of life at the border since bloody clashes erupted in the eastern Himalayas in 1967.
The Chinese foreign ministry called on India not to take any unilateral action or stir up trouble.
‘Serious violation’
A ministry spokesman in Beijing said there was a serious violation of the consensus reached by the two countries when Indian troops provoked and attacked Chinese personnel, leading to a serious physical conflict.
“What’s shocking is that on June 15, the Indian side severely violated our consensus and twice crossed the border line and provoked and attacked the Chinese forces, causing a violent physical confrontation between the two border forces,” Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing.
Talks to defuse situation
Major Generals of India and China are talking to defuse the situation in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley and other areas after the violent face-off on Monday night in which casualties have been suffered by both sides, Indian
army sources said yesterday.
“The loss of lives on the Indian side includes an officer and two soldiers,” the Army said in a statement and added that senior military officials of the two sides are currently engaged in a meeting to defuse the situation. Indian army sources had said there has been disengagement between Indian and Chinese troops at more locations where they had been in standoff positions for last many weeks now.