20 Indian troops killed in border ‘rock fight’ with Chinese forces

VIOLENT clashes between Indian and Chinese forces on the disputed Himalayan border left at least 20 soldiers dead yesterday.

No bullets were fired in the first deadly incident in the area for more than 45 years but troops squared off with fists and rocks instead.

China accused Indian forces of carrying out ‘ provocative attacks’ but has not said if any of its soldiers have died.

The Indian army later said that the two sides had ‘disengaged’ from the Galwan valley area to defuse tensions.

Indian officers originally reported that three of its soldiers had died but later said 17 more succumbed to the injuries they had suffered in the subzero temperatures in Ladakh in disputed Kashmir.

Thousands of soldiers on both sides have been facing off for more than a month along a remote stretch of the 2,100-mile Line of Actual Control – the border set up after a war between India and China in 1962 that resulted in an uneasy truce.

The fighting is the first deadly confrontation between the two Asian giants since 1975, when Chinese troops killed four Indian soldiers in an ambush.

Vivek Katju, a retired Indian diplomat, said the deadly violence represented a dramatic departure from the four- decades-old standoff. ‘The political class and the security class as a whole will have to do very serious thinking about the road ahead,’ he said.

The Indian army said a ‘violent face- off’ had taken place ‘with casualties on both sides’.

China’s foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said it had protested strongly about the incident but was still committed to maintaining ‘peace and tranquillity’ along what is a heavily militarised border. ‘But what is shocking is that the Indian troops seriously violated the consensus of the two sides, crossed the border illegally twice and carried out provocative attacks on Chinese personnel, resulting in serious physical conflicts between the two border forces,’ he added.

India’s ministry of external affairs said the incident had happened ‘as a result of an attempt by the Chinese side to unilaterally change the status quo’ in the Galwan valley.

Soldiers from the two countries, backed by armoured trucks and artillery, have been facing off just a few hundred yards apart for more than a month. Army officers and diplomats have held a series of meetings to try to end the impasse but with no breakthrough.

The standoff started when Indian officials accused Chinese soldiers of crossing the boundary at three different points, erecting tents and guard posts and ignoring verbal warnings to leave. This triggered shouting matches, stone throwing and fist fights between the troops.

The two countries have been trying to settle the border dispute since the 1990s. China claims about 35,000 square miles of territory in India’s north-east, while it accuses the Chinese of occupying 15,000 square miles of its territory.

‘Stone throwing and fist fights’