Suhail Khan
Srinagar June 17 : After killing of 20 Indian Army men by Chinese soldiers, National Conference president and Member Parliament Farooq Abdullah Wednesday said he has no knowledge about the Laddakh.
“I have no knowledge about Ladakh. I am in Srinagar. I don’t know about Ladakh,” Farooq told news agency (KINS), when asked his comments over the killing of 20 army men and escalations between Chinese and Indian soldiers in Ladakh.
The clashes broke out after Indian army moved to remove a Chinese army tent set up near a position code-named Patrolling Point 14, inside territory on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control.
Twenty Indian Army men, including a Colonel, were killed in the clash with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley on Monday night, which is the biggest military confrontation in over five decades that has significantly escalated the already volatile border standoff between the two countries.
A large number of Indian and Chinese troops have been engaged in an eyeball-to-eyeball situation in Galwan Valley and certain other areas of eastern Ladakh for the last five weeks, including in Pangong Tso, Galwan Valley, Demchok and Daulat Beg Oldie in eastern Ladakh.
Monday’s face-off was the biggest confrontation between the two militaries after their 1967 clashes in Nathu La when India lost around 80 soldiers while over 300 Chinese army personnel were killed in the confrontation.
This is not for the first time that there has been a face-off between the Chinese and the Indian army on the LAC in Ladakh. On the intervening night of April 15 and 16, 2013, PLA crossed 19 kilometres deep inside the Indian Territory at Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) sector on LAC in Ladakh and set up tented posts. The 20-day old standoff ended on May 5, 2013, when troops from both sides withdrew to the pre-incursion positions on the line of actual control.
On November 3, 2016, Indian and Chinese troops were locked in a tense standoff along the Line of Actual Control in the Demchok sector of Ladakh after the People Liberation Army (PLA) objected to the construction of a developmental project.
In 2012, the Chinese army forced the Jammu and Kashmir government to suspend the work on a prestigious irrigation scheme at the Kuyul-Thuksey area of Nyoma block in Leh district of Ladakh division.
In 2010, the Chinese army forced Jammu and Kashmir government to suspend work on the passenger sheds which were being constructed near the Sino-Indo border in the Demchok area in Leh district of Ladakh region.
In 2011, Chinese troops crossed the border and threatened the nomads who were grazing their cattle near the border.(KINS)
