In a significant step towards the India-China border disengagement, Both armies have removed the troops and infrastructure along the Depsang and Demchok areas of the Eastern Ladakh sector, news agency ANI reported on Tuesday, quoting defence sources. The disengagement process is almost over, and the Armies of India and China are verifying the vacation of positions and removal of infrastructure by each other there, it added.
Both armies have also dismantled structures, which were put up during the standoff. The process of disengagement followed a long diplomatic engagement between the two countries, with the announcement coming days ahead of the bilateral meeting of Prime Minister Modi with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Kazan BRICS summit held earlier this month in Russia.
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Indian Army and Chinese PLA remained at loggerheads since a skirmish broke out between them at Ladakh's Pangong Tso Lake in 2020. The row was followed by a melee fight between the troops in Galwan River Valley, which resulted in several deaths on both sides.
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Last week, four days after India announced that an agreement on patrolling in the Depsang Plains and Demchok had been reached with China, Beijing affirmed the same, saying that "the Chinese and Indian frontier troops are engaged in relevant work, which is going smoothly at the moment".
Sources in the Army said that following the completion of the verification process, the coordinated patrolling will begin within the next two days. Prior information will be given by both sides so that there is no danger of a face-off.
In Depsang plains, Indian troops will now be able to patrol beyond the 'bottleneck' area as the Chinese had been preventing Indian troops from accessing the patrolling points that lay beyond.
In Demchok, Indian troops should now be able to get to the patrolling points at Track Junction and Charding Nullah. However, the large number of Indian troops rushed to Ladakh after the stand-off in 2020 will continue to remain in place till a wider consensus on the border patrolling mechanism is reached with the Chinese.
(With agency inputs)