Over the last few weeks, it has become a common sight in Leh. Every day, hundreds of army vehicles and cars hired by the army pass through ...
Over the last few weeks, it has become a common sight in Leh. Every day, hundreds of army vehicles and cars hired by the army pass through the town, making their way towards eastern Ladakh.
“It looks scary,” said a resident of Leh who did not want to be named. “Every day 100-150 vehicles move towards the China border. People in Leh are aware that China is not Pakistan. That’s why they are worried.”
The troop movement comes at a time when India and China are locked in a stand-off at Pangong Tso and the Galwan river valley along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh. On the night of May 5-6, the troops of two countries came to blows near Pangong Tso in eastern Ladakh, some 170 kilometres from the town of Leh. Since then, tensions have escalated.
Last week, a statement from China claimed that the Indian Army had “entered Chinese soil on the Baijing and Lujin duan section of the Sino-Indian border, obstructing the normal patrol of Chinese border troops, and was attempting to unilaterally change the status quo of border territory.”
The ministry of external affairs denied this: “it is the Chinese side that has recently undertaken activity hindering India’s normal patrolling patterns.”
On May 30, Defence...
