India-China Border: Army says all its men are accounted for

Indian Army on Thursday asserted that none of its soldiers involved in the clash on Monday night at Galwan Valley was missing in action.

The assertion was meant to put at rest speculations of Indian troops being in Chinese captivity. This was initially whispered in the corridors of power since Monday but now came out in the open, thanks to few defence analysts and reports in a section of the foreign press.

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“This is with reference to the article ‘In China - India Clash, Two Nationalist Leaders with Little Room to Give’ by the New York Times dated June 17, 2020. It is clarified that there are no Indian troops missing in action,” said an Army official. Other foreign agencies too reported the same.

The official, however, did not respond to specific queries on whether Indian soldiers are in Chinese captivity giving rise to such speculation.

One of the defence analysts claimed at least 10 Indians are in Chinese captivity. On Monday night, the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh witnessed a bloody battle in which 20 Indian soldiers including a Colonel rank officer were killed.

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The PLA troops attacked them with nail-studded rods, clubs and stones wrapped in barbed wires. Beijing has not disclosed the number of casualties from their side, but, ANI quoting government sources claimed that the Chinese suffered a significant number of casualties.

A Major General rank officer from the Indian Army held discussions with his Chinese counterparts for the last three days. While the talks ended in a stalemate for the last two days, Thursday’s outcome is yet to be known.

Meanwhile, in a curious comment Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that the troops who went along with Col Santosh Babu on the date full day also carried their arms.

Read: All you need to know about Ghulam Rassul Galwan — The man after whom the Galwan river was named

The minister didn’t give any reason for the soldiers not to fire even a single shot even while coming under a savage attack. The minister mentioned that there are two agreements signed between India and China in 1996 and 2005 that forbade the use of firearms during a face-off.

“But when the CO gets killed, all such rules went out of the window,” said a retired infantry officer who insisted that much remained unknown about the sequence of events that unfolded at Galwan on that night.