The situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh remains tense, Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat has said on Friday. China’s PLA was facing unanticipated consequences for its misadventure in Ladakh because of firm responses by the Indian forces, he said.
“Our posturing is unambiguous and we will not accept any shift in the Line of Actual Control,” Gen Bipin Rawat said on the standoff in eastern Ladakh. Border confrontations and unprovoked military actions were spiralling into a larger conflict that could not be discounted, the Chief of Defence Staff said. “The unabated proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir unleashed by Pakistan and accompanied by vicious anti-India rhetoric have taken Indo-Pak ties to a new low. The surgical and Balakot strikes send a strong message that Pakistan no longer enjoys impunity of pushing terrorists into India under nuclear bogey,” Gen Rawat emphasised. The new Indian template to deal with terror had injected uncertainty in Pakistan, Gen Rawat said on cross border terrorism. The border standoff has entered the sixth month.
The situation in eastern Ladakh deteriorated following at least three attempts by the Chinese soldiers to “intimidate” Indian troops along the northern and southern bank of Pangong lake area between August 29 and September 8 where even shots were fired in the air for the first time at the LAC in 45 years.