Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat on Friday said that situation along Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh remains tense. He said that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is facing unanticipated consequences for its misadventure in Ladakh because of firm responses by Indian forces.
“Our posturing is unambiguous; we will not accept any shift in Line of Actual Control,” Gen Bipin Rawat about standoff in eastern Ladakh. He said that border confrontations and unprovoked military actions spiralling into larger conflict can’t be discounted.
“Pakistan has continued to remain the epicentre of armed Islamic insurgency & terrorism. For three decades now, Pakistan army & its intelligence agency ISI have been waging a proxy war in J&K have now increasingly resorting to non-kinetic means by launching vicious anti-India rhetoric on social media & propagating false communal narrative to create social disharmony within India,” he said.
His remark comes just ahead of the eighth round of Corps Commander-level talks between the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA today. The talks will take place in Chushul on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh. During the talks, the Indian Army will press for comprehensive disengagement of troops by the Chinese PLA from all the friction points in eastern Ladakh.
Nearly 50,000 Indian Army troops are currently deployed in a high state of combat readiness in various mountainous locations in eastern Ladakh in sub-zero conditions as multiple rounds of talks between the two sides have not yielded concrete outcome to resolve the six-month-long military standoff. The Chinese PLA has also deployed an equal number of troops, according to reports.
The last round of Corps Commander-level talks had taken place on October 12 but there was no breakthrough on the disengagement of troops from the friction points. The standoff between the two sides erupted in early May.
