Army pulls back 1.5 km from clash site
PLA too moves out; Indian troops won’t be able to patrol up to Point 14 in Galwan Valley for 30 days
Indian troops have moved back 1.5 km from the site of the June 15 clash at the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh, creating a buffer zone, which will be offlimits for foot patrolling by them for the next 30 days, a senior government official has told The Hindu. This is as per the agreement reached during the Corps Commanderlevel talks on June 30. According to a defence source, the Chinese have fully moved out of the Patrol Point 14 area, the clash site, and thinning down of troops is under way at Hot Springs and Gogra, which could take two or three days to complete.
Marginal at Pangong Tso
However, sources termed the disengagement by China at Pangong Tso as marginal. “At Galwan, only 30 people on each side are deployed now; the distance between them is 3.64 km, the agreed buffer zone. The primary objective of the first phase of disengagement was to have no eyeballtoeyeball positions, which has been achieved through this arrangement. The next layer of deployment of 50 personnel on each side is about 1 km further behind. Within 6 km, there are just 80 people on both sides,” the official said. The Indian Army, which used to patrol till Patrol Point 14 until the recent standoff, could lose that right if a final solution is not found, said an official. The official said this was a cause of concern as the Chinese had entered well within the Indian perception of the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The defence source cited above said that the initial process of disengagement at several places and the verification is expected to take two weeks, stating that it is going to be a long process for full disengagement. Another round of talks will be held after that to take the process forward.
Then and now: A June 28 satellite image of the Galwan Valley, left, shows that India had built a wall on its side and China had expanded an outpost camp at the end of a long road connected to its military bases farther from the poorly defined border, according to experts. The structures appear to have been dismantled in the July 6 image, on the right.
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