M A I N   N E W S

Army decides to stay put at Chumar till China backs off
Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service

IAF to drop supplies to troops in Ladakh The Indian Air Force has been tasked to ready its Mi-17 helicopters to drop supplies to Army and ITBP troops occupying positions in Chumar, Ladakh, facing the Chinese The airdrop is needed as each peak in the cold desert does not have a road. In the Chumar sector, India has roads but not to each position occupied in the past 10 days Two days ago, the Chinese had used copters to drop supplies for their troops

New Delhi, September 19
India and China today made another attempt to resolve the 10-day-old stand-off between their armies at Chumar in south eastern Ladakh. However, they failed to end the ongoing impasse over controlling the access to a remote mountain pass at the un-demarcated Line of Actual Control (LAC), the defacto border between the two neighbours.

Troops on either side remain locked in a face-off at three separate spots – two in the Chumar area and one in Demchok, 70 km east of Chumar that forms the far eastern edge of Jammu and Kashmir abutting Tibet.

Sources said the Army’s Kiari-based 70 Brigade at Chumar and Demchok has been advised by the New Delhi-based Army headquarters to hold its existing positions on the high mountain pass named ‘30-R’ and around it till the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China does not withdraw from its positions across the LAC in its own areas of Chepzi (Zhipuqi-Quebusi).

Teams of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) stand shoulder to shoulder with the Army. There is no change in position and there is no withdrawal, top sources have confirmed to The Tribune while denying reports in a section of media that China or India had withdrawn from Chumar or Demchok.

Today Indian Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and presented all options to him. Senior Army officers briefed officials at the Ministry of Defence.

Army commanders on ground have seemingly exhausted all options and at successive flag meetings at the designated meeting point of ‘Spanggur Gap’ in the Chusul area of eastern Ladakh, both sides have expressed their opinions but not acceded to each other’s request to withdraw from the stand-off point. Under the 2005 protocol, both armies should withdraw when facing each other at disputed sections along the LAC. The troops are supposed to show a banner to each other and disengage.