Twenty Indian soldiers are killed in brutal hand-to-hand fighting with Chinese soldiers at border - ReadSector

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.

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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)

Indian soldiers erect a military bunker along the Srinagar-Leh National highway on June 16, 2020

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.

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.

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).

The deaths at the border comes after several clashes along the 2,175 mile border, over which the two sides fought the 1962 Sino-Indian War. India suffered a humiliating defeat.

On May 9, dozens of Chinese and Indian soldiers were injured in fistfights and stone-throwing in Sikkim state. Many Indian soldiers were hospitalized for weeks.

And in another incident days later, footage emerged which purported to show a Chinese soldier being beaten by Indian forces on the banks of Pangong Lake, a mile into Indian territory in Ladakh.

India’s army chief General Manoj Naravane downplayed the ‘temporary and short-duration face-offs.’

But a week after making those remarks, the general flew north to visit the 14th Corps HQ in Leh, Ladakh’s capital, 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.’

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

Indians burn images of Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bhopal today after news of the violence at the border broke

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.

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.’

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

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 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.

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.

Troops from the two countries have been facing off along the disputed frontier for more than a month (file photo)

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.

Key dates in India-China border tensions

Asian regional superpowers India and China share a long history of mistrust and conflict along their lengthy border, and tensions flared up this week in a deadly clash between troops.

The world’s two most populous nations and nuclear-armed neighbours have never even agreed on the length of their ‘Line of Actual Control’ frontier, which straddles the strategically important Himalayan region.

Recent decades have seen numerous skirmishes along the border, including a brief but bloody war in 1962.

Here are some key dates:

– Nehru’s 1959 Beijing visit –

India inherited its border dispute with China from its British colonial rulers, who hosted a 1914 conference with the Tibetan and Chinese governments to set the border.

Beijing has never recognised the 1914 boundary, known as the McMahon Line, and currently claims 90,000 square kilometres (34,750 square miles) of territory – nearly all of what constitutes India’s Arunachal Pradesh state.

The border dispute first flared up during a visit by India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to Beijing in 1959.

Nehru questioned the boundaries shown on official Chinese maps, prompting Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai to reply that his government did not accept the colonial frontier.

– 1962 Sino-Indian War –

Chinese troops poured over the disputed frontier with India in 1962 during a row over the border’s demarcation. It sparked a four-week war that left thousands dead on the Indian side before China’s forces withdrew.

Beijing retained Aksai Chin, a strategic corridor linking Tibet to western China. India still claims the entire Aksai Chin region as its own, as well as the nearby China-controlled Shaksgam valley in northern Kashmir.

– 1967 Nathu La conflict –

Another flashpoint was Nathu La, India’s highest mountain pass in northeastern Sikkim state, which is sandwiched between Bhutan, Chinese-ruled Tibet and Nepal.

During a series of clashes, including the exchange of artillery fire, New Delhi said some 80 Indian soldiers died and counted up to 400 Chinese casualties.

– 1975 Tulung La ambush –

This skirmish was the last time shots were officially reported to have been fired across the disputed border.

Four Indian soldiers were ambushed and killed along the dividing line in Arunachal Pradesh.

New Delhi blamed Beijing for crossing into Indian territory, a claim dismissed by China.

– 2017 Doklam plateau stand-off –

India and China had a months-long high-altitude standoff in Bhutan’s Doklam region after the Indian army sent troops to stop China constructing a road in the area.

The Doklam plateau is strategically significant as it gives China access to the so-called ‘chicken’s neck’ – a thin strip of land connecting India’s northeastern states with the rest of the country.

It is claimed by both China and Bhutan, an ally of India. The issue was resolved after talks.

– 2020 Ladakh confrontation –

Tensions have boiled over again after several Indian and Chinese soldiers were injured in a high-altitude fist fight on the border at Sikkim state in early May.

Indian officials said that within days, Chinese troops encroached over the demarcation line further west in Ladakh region and India then moved in extra troops to positions opposite.

Last week both countries said they would peacefully resolve the face-off after a high-level meeting between army commanders.

But on Monday, India said three of its soldiers were killed in a violent clash in the strategically important Galwan Valley on the Himalayan frontier.