Indian Army Crossed The LAC Into China Controlled Territory To Demolish Illegal Blockade On Galwan River: Report

Defence Analyst Abhijeet Iyer-Mitra in a Deccan Chronicle article has laid out a comprehensive timeline of the Galwan face-off while asserting that the biggest takeaways from the episode is - a calculated escalation by the Indian side to stop China from weaponizing water.

Mitra writes that by 2 June the Indian side had realised that China had erected an obstruction on the Galwan river around 650 metres into its side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC). This action by the Chinese simultaneously followed India's act of dismantling two China built tents around 100 metres across the LAC.

After demolishing the Chinese tents - meant to house 40 troops, the Indian Army proceeded to erect its own tent in the area.

Even though such an obstruction of water can pose a big threat to India, China refused to dismantle the dam like structure - despite it being a clear violation of the status-quo.

While not technically a dam, the nature of the obstructive structure continues to be undecipherable.

On 19 June while the river was in full torrential flow, Chinese troops brought remnants of the structure to the LAC in a possible bid to prove their compliance.

Mitra calls Indian Army's 15 June activity a "significant systemic shock that forced the Chinese to stop this highly dangerous weaponisation of water" which sent a clear deterrent message to China.

"What happened at Galwan on June 15 can now be extrapolated as a fairly deep incursion into the Chinese side of the LAC in order to force the demolition of a dam", he adds.

Incidentally, the report adds that this is the same "structure across the LAC" which was mentioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on 19 June.