BLOODBATH RIDGE

AN AGGRESSIVE CHINA SPARKS OFF A BLOODY BORDER CLASH, LEADING TO THE BIGGEST MILITARY STAND-OFF ON THE LAC SINCE 1962

- Sandeep Unnithan

On Monday, June 15, it seemed like the stand-off with the Chinese PLA (People’s Liberation Army) in eastern Ladakh was drawing to a close. Nine days earlier, commanders from both sides had held the first-ever meet at the Moldo border post opposite Chushul in Ladakh, and the Chinese, according to the Indian army, had agreed to pull back in the Galwan Valley. That evening, a group of soldiers from the 16 Bihar Regiment camped in the valley went to verify whether the PLA had indeed withdrawn from Patrol Point 14, a spot on a ridge above the valley which the latter had occupied since early May. This was the point in the valley on India’s side of the LAC to where border patrols usually walked up to and returned.

Like all the ridge positions in the valley heights at between 14,000-16,000 feet, one army officer says, this one too can be accessed only by a narrow foot trail barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast. An altercation broke out after Indian soldiers began dismantling a tent built by the Chinese. It rapidly escalated into fierce hand-to-hand combat when hundreds of PLA troopers rushed in brandishing their new melee ‘weapons’—iron rods and clubs studded with nails designed to penetrate multiple layers of high-altitude clothing and inflict grievous bodily harm. Twenty Indian soldiers, including commanding officer Colonel Santosh Babu, were killed in the savage scuffle. Several soldiers, it is believed, fell to their deaths from the heights after sustaining serious injuries. Others died of injuries aggravated by hypothermia, the extreme cold impeding blood circulation to the brain and chest. Ten soldiers held by the Chinese were released after major-generals from both sides met on June 18. The Indian army believes an unknown number of casualties were caused on the Chinese side too, but these could not be independently confirmed.