INDIAN ARMY AVENGES GALWAN MARTYRS AT TAWANG

The PLA had come prepared to encounter 50 Indian soldiers and had not factored in members of Indian Army’s Quick Response Team, who were waiting behind.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

The 9 December clash between soldiers of the Indian Army and China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) took place around 25 km from Tawang town and roughly 178 km from Arunachal Pradesh’s capital Itanagar, as the crow flies. According to information accessed by The Sunday Guardian, Indian Army got the first whiff of something amiss in the last week of November, inside 10 days of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping coming face to face at Bali on 15 November during the G-20 summit.

“Since the last week of November, an increase in sightings of the PLA patrol party in their respective areas of responsibility was reported by battalion commanders. This was followed by an increase in face-offs with Chinese patrols, after which our men on the ground were reinforced,” a senior source aware of the matter told The Sunday Guardian.

The Indian Army, alarmed by these developments, increased its focus on the probable points through which PLA soldiers could enter the territory held by India to establish its dominance. On the night of 8 December-9 December, Indian jawans (soldiers)—armed with hand-held thermal imagers present around these ingress points at Yangste— reported a steady accumulation of PLA soldiers taking place near the Indian posts.