Argument over Chinese post in buffer zone led to clashes

India-China Border Face-off Latest News Live Update: The Indian Army Tuesday confirmed the death of 20 personnel in violent clashes with Chinese troops in Ladakh’s Galwan area, along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The incident, which took place Monday night, was the worst flare-up along the border in more than five decades.

Officers told The Indian Express the clashes were triggered by an argument over the position of Chinese soldiers who were erecting a new post on the southern bank of Galwan river in a ‘buffer zone’ – a no-man’s land.

In the fight, some soldiers either fell or were pushed into the river, officers said. Some bodies were recovered from the river while others had signs of being brutalised. A few soldiers died of hypothermia. While the Army said there were casualties on both sides, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) did not comment on its losses.

“Indian and Chinese troops have disengaged at the Galwan area where they had earlier clashed on the night of 15/16 June 2020. 17 Indian troops 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. Indian Army is firmly committed to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the nation,” the Army said in a statement.

The last deaths at the LAC were in 1975 when an Indian patrol was ambushed by Chinese soldiers in Arunachal Pradesh. A violent clash between the two sides on the border had taken place at Nathu La in 1967.

Indian express