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Two Years Since Galwan Valley Clashes
Northern Army Commander in Galwan. (Northern Command/Twitter)
On this day in 2020 soldiers from 16 Bihar Regiment clashed with Chinese troops.
Indian troops inflicted over 35 casualities on the Chinese side.
While India openly acknowledged and honored its dead the Chinese are yet to fully recognise their dead.
Satellite images showed that the Chinese side had built up large force levels, 'potentially 1,000 PLA soldiers' the week before the clashes.
A US Congressional Commission report said that the Chinese side had planned the incident including possibility of fatalities.
It said a proximate cause was India's construction of a strategic access road to support troops stationed along the LAC.
In the aftermath of the clash, Beijing asserted sovereignty over the entire Galwan Valley, a new claim and significant change to the territorial status quo
It's all about India getting its act right on the border infrastructure. In fact it is about one road in particular.
The Galwan Valley provides strategic depth in the region through which India has built a key road.
Immediate cause of stand-off: A feeder road and a bridge that India is constructing to Patrol Point 14 in the narrow Galwan Valley
In August following the clashed Indian Army commandos from Special Frontier Force captured heights of the Kailash Range south of Pangong Tso.
India’s move preempted China, which was also planning a similar action to grab the heights south of Pangong Tso.
It also leaves Chinese camps and lines of communication around the Spanggur Gap vulnerable to Indian attack from the dominating heights.
Indian and Chinese forces deployed on the north bank of the Pangong Lake and the peaks of the Kailash Range have disengaged.
But the standoff continues in other areas.
On both sides of the LAC, forces are now deeply entrenched.
New infrastructure has come up to sustain the unprecedented deployment of troops and equipment.
India continues to maintain the troop levels — 50,000 to 60,000 soldiers — that it had in Ladakh at the height of the crisis.
The LAC has been heavily militarised on both the sides.
The Indian Army has built a memorial to honor the soldiers who lost their lives in the Galwan Valley clash with China.
Colonel Santosh Babu, the Commanding Officer of 16 Bihar who was killed in action along with 19 others in the Galwan clash was decorated with a posthumous Maha Vir Chakra.
The Chinese continue to claim that only four of their troops were killed in the clashes.
