Indian and Chinese soldiers injured in crossborder fistfight, says Delhi
Several Indian and Chinese soldiers have been injured in a cross-border clash involving fistfights and stonethrowing at a remote but strategically important mountain pass near Tibet, the Indian army said on Sunday.
There have been long-running border tensions between the nucleararmed neighbours, with a bitter war fought over the Indian north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh in 1962.
“Aggressive behaviour by the two sides resulted in minor injuries to troops. It was stone-throwing and arguments that ended in a fistfight,” Indian army eastern command spokesman Mandeep Hooda said.
The “stand-off ” on Saturday – at Naku La sector near the 15,000-feet (4,572-metre) Nathu La crossing in the northeastern state of Sikkim – was later resolved after “dialogue and interaction” at a local level, Hooda said.
“Temporary and short-duration face-offs between border-guarding troops do occur as boundaries are not resolved,” he said.
One hundred and fifty soldiers were involved in the face-off, the Press Trust of India reported.
There have been numerous faceoffs and brawls between Chinese and Indian soldiers, including one near the north-west Indian region of Ladakh, that was captured on video in 2017, where troops were seen throwing punches and stones.
In 2017, there was a high-altitude standoff in Bhutan’s Doklam region for two months after the Indian army sent troops to stop China constructing a road there.
Relations since the Doklam dispute between the two Asian giants appeared to improve following talks between Chinese president Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Wuhan, China, in 2018.
The two men also met in October last year in Chennai in southern India.
China still claims about 90,000 square kilometres (35,000 square miles) of territory under New Delhi’s control.