India is determined to impose costs on Chinese troops if they attempt any further misadventure on the border, officials said after defence minister Rajnath Singh reviewed operational readiness along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with the military brass. The armed forces have been given “full freedom” to respond in an “adequate and proportionate manner” to any hostile act in accordance with their judgment. “They have been told not to start a fight, but also not to hold back in the event of any ground intrusion or breach of airspace. The Army, Navy and IAF reported satisfactory levels of preparedness and high operational alertness along the LAC,” an official said.
The meeting chaired by Singh was attended by chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat and the three Service chiefs, General M M Naravane, Admiral Karambir Singh and Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria. The decisive shift away from the long-standing border management policy to largely maintain “peace and tranquility” on the LAC gives the military commanders on the ground the leeway to undertake whatever action is required to foil any misadventure by the PLA.
“This obviously includes freedom to the commanders to order troops to open fire in the face of extreme provocation and extraordinary situations like the one near PP-14 on June 15,” the official said.
Diplomatic talks likely this week
Sources said diplomatic talks are likely to be held with China in the coming week in a bid to break the military stalemate on the ground. A second meeting between 14 Corps commander Lt-General Harinder Singh and South Xinjiang Military District chief Major General Liu Lin is also on the cards, on the lines of the one they held at the Chushul-Moldo border personnel meeting point in eastern Ladakh on June 6.
This week, MEA joint secretary in charge of China, Naveen Srivastava, will hold a second virtual conference with his counterpart in Beijing to bring about a diplomatic resolution to the crisis. This will be the second conversation between Srivastava and Wu Jianghao, director general in the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs after June 5.
With both India and China having amassed troops and heavy weapons all along the 3,488-km LAC, and no signs of any de-escalation in the troop confrontations in eastern Ladakh, “a high-level politico-diplomatic intervention may be required due to the continuing deadlock”, another official said.
Though the Indian Army is in control of the area near PP-14, PLA’s occupation of ‘Finger-4 to 8’ (mountainous spurs separated by a distance of 8 km) area on the north bank of Pangong Tso remains a major area of concern.
The PLA has built fortifications and taken control of the heights to block all Indian patrols west to east from ‘Finger-4’ to ‘Finger-8’ area, where the LAC runs north to south, since early last month.
India moves jets, copters along border
India has moved its fighter jets to forward airbases facing China, even as additional warships have now been deployed in the extended Bay of Bengal region, in a clear signal to Beijing that New Delhi is prepared for escalation in the ongoing troop confrontation on the unresolved border.
The fresh build-up includes the new Apache attack helicopters, which are “tank killers” with their Hellfire air-to-ground missiles and rockets, and Chinook heavy-lift choppers, capable of transporting howitzers and troops to forward high-altitude areas, being deployed in Ladakh. “China has crossed our red-lines by brutally killing 20 of our soldiers in a premeditated attack (in Galwan Valley of eastern Ladakh on June 15). We are fully prepared for any spiraling of the escalation matrix. All necessary steps have been taken,” said a top military officer.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which is clearly in no mood for disengagement, also continues to build-up its forces all along the LAC. This is especially true at the ongoing troop confrontation sites in Galwan Valley region, Pangong Tso (Tso means lake), and Gogra-Hot Springs area as well other areas like Depsang and Chushul in eastern Ladakh.
Air Chief makes quiet visit to Leh, Srinagar
India, on its part, has inducted frontline Sukhoi-30MKI, MiG-29 and Jaguar fighters into forward airbases, with IAF chief Air Chief Marshal R K S Bhadauria quietly visiting Leh and Srinagar last week to review the operational preparedness in the region. IAF has fully activated all its airbases facing the northern borders with China, ranging from Leh, Srinagar, Awantipur and Bareilly to Tezpur, Chabua and Hasimara in the northeast, to further strengthen its military posture.
Though China can deploy over 20 fighter squadrons from its eight main airbases in Tibet and other airfields to their north during a conflict, it suffers from a terrain constraint because the weapon and fuel carrying capacity of its jets is limited due to the high-altitude and rarefied air in the region.
While Indian fighters are undertaking stepped-up `combat air patrols’ due to the “heightened state of alert” in the region, C-17 Globemaster-III, C-130J `Super Hercules’ and AN-32 transport aircraft have formed “an air bridge” from Chandigarh to Ladakh to transport soldiers and weapon systems to forward areas in regular sorties.
Withdraw from Pangong, India tells China
India pressed for the withdrawal of Chinese troops from Indian territory in the Pangong Tso area of eastern Ladakh, while expressing outrage at the “premediated and pre-planned” brutal violence unleashed against Indian soldiers in Galwan Valley on June 15, during the second round of top-level military talks on Monday. India strongly reiterated its demand for restoration of status quo as it existed in mid-April, which would involve PLA troops pulling back from the “Finger 4 to 8” area on the northern bank of Pangong Tso as well as de-inducting its military buildups in areas facing the Galwan Valley, Gogra-Hotsprings, Depsang and Chushul in eastern Ladakh, said sources.
There was no official word on the outcome of the second round of talks between Lt-General Harinder Singh and Major General Liu Lin, who had held a similar dialogue for the first time on June 6. The meeting on Monday continued till late in the night on the Chinese side of the Chushul-Moldo border personnel meeting (BPM) point in eastern Ladakh. The extended Moldo meeting took place even as Army chief General M M Naravane in New Delhi reviewed the “operational ground situation” all along LAC, which has seen the rival armies engage in major military build-ups, with the heads of the six regional commands and one training command of the over 12,00,000 strong Army.
“De-escalation in eastern Ladakh is not going to be easy. It will take time. We are hoping for the best but are prepared for the worst,” said a source. At the Moldo meeting, India expressed its anger at the barbaric attack on Indian troops by the numerically superior PLA soldiers, armed with nail-studded iron rods and stones, near “Patrolling Point-14” in the Galwan Valley region on June 15.
