‘China did not enter our territory, no posts taken’: PM at all-party meet on Ladakh clash

NEW DELHI: The Chinese neither entered our territory nor has any post been taken over by them, underscored Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the all-party meet to discuss the border incident along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh where 20 Indian soldiers died in the line of duty in brutal hand-to-hand combat with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Congress' Sonia Gandhi, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, Telangana Rashtra Samithi leader K Chandrasekhar Rao, Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader MK Stalin, YSR Congress Party's YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray were among those who attended the meeting.

Assuring the opposition parties, the PM said be it deployment, action or counter-action our forces - be it on land in air or water - are doing everything to protect our borders.

The infrastructure development in border areas has gained in pace over the past years, said the PM, adding that it has strengthened our patrolling capacity.

The immediate cause for the conflict at Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh isn’t known, although it could have been about Chinese soldiers dragging their feet about removing some of the installations they erected in May in an area India claims as its own. The troops have since disengaged, the Indian Army said in a statement confirming the number of dead at 20.

Indian Army officials claimed 43 Chinese were killed or seriously injured, citing radio intercepts and other intelligence. HT couldn’t independently verify this.

These were the first Indian casualties in a border skirmish with the PLA Army since October 1975 when Chinese troops ambushed an Indian patrol in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tulung La sector and shot four soldiers dead.

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