India bolsters military deployment along Himalaya border with China
India has ramped up military deployment in a remote Himalayan region at the center of a border dispute with China.
Media reports said on Wednesday the military had increased manpower and expanded infrastructure in the eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh. New Delhi also deployed cruise missiles, howitzers, choppers and drones along the treacherous mountain ranges.
“Just as there are a number of measures which the other side is taking in terms of capacity building, and so are we... to be able to counter this threat,” said Lieutenant General Manoj Pande, the Indian army’s eastern commander.
India is discontented with China’s building permanent settlements near the border, and placing more boots on the ground there.
“We have observed some infrastructure development on the Chinese side,” Manoj Pande told journalists during an earlier press tour through the region. “That has led to [a higher] number of troops that are now located or placed there.”
Troops from the two sides engaged in a deadly fighting in Ladakh region in June 2020. At least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers lost their lives in the violence.
India and China have since held multiple rounds of military talks to fully resolve the dispute.
The latest round of negotiations reached a dead-end in October.
Beijing also claims the ownership of Arunachal Pradesh, which it refers to as South Tibet.
India and China fought a brief but bloody border war in 1962. Distrust has occasionally led to flare-ups ever since. Each side routinely sends patrols into areas claimed or controlled by the other. Temperatures around the remote strategic areas often drop below zero and the thin mountain air is starved of oxygen. Nearby military outposts can be cut off from the outside world for entire weeks in the winter.
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