NEW DELHI: The Army will begin initial patrols on Thursday to a few places where its access was blocked by Chinese troops in the Depsang and Demchok areas of eastern Ladakh for the last four and a half years, in a significant development that India hopes will eventually lead to de-escalation along the entire Line of Actual Control.
The resumption of patrolling will come after the two armies on Wednesday completed the phased disengagement and verification process, both physically on the ground as well as through aerial surveillance by drones and satellites, at the two remaining face-off sites in the Depsang Plains and the Charding Ninglung Nallah track junction near Demchok.
“The aerial verification of Demchok was completed on Wednesday morning after getting delayed by a day due to bad weather. In the evening, the rival ground commanders met at two points in Depsang and one at Demchok for the final confirmation of the dismantling of temporary posts and structures as well as the mutual pullback of troops to pre-April 2020 positions,” a top defence source told TOI.
With the 10-day disengagement and verification going off without a major hitch, the Army will “launch some initial patrolling on Thursday and progressively expand it to full-fledged patrols to all areas over the coming days and weeks”, he added.
The thaw in the bone-chilling conditions in the high-altitude region will be marked by the exchange of sweets between the rival troops at several locations to mark Diwali on Thursday.
The yawning trust deficit, however, will take time to bridge. “A close watch will be kept on the People’s Liberation Army to ensure its does not renege from the pact on the coordinated Depsang-Demchok patrolling arrangements announced on Oct 21, under which each side will inform the other in advance about its patrols to prevent clashes,” said another source.
While ground commanders of the rank of Brigadiers and below will continue to meet regularly to discuss modalities as before, sources said the next major step will be for rival corps commanders of Lieutenant General-rank to meet after the situation stabilises in Depsang-Demchok to discuss the resumption of patrolling rights in the “buffer zones” created earlier.
The ‘no-patrol’ buffer zones after the earlier disengagements at Galwan, north bank of Pangong Tso, the Kailash Range and the larger Gogra-Hot Springs area, varying from 3km to 10km, largely came up on what India considers to be its own territory.
“These buffer zones with patrolling restrictions, with the last one coming up in Sept 2022, were supposed to be temporary arrangements. Our troops will now get unhindered access to their five traditional patrolling points (PPs) in Depsang and two in Demchok since no buffer zones have been created there. But the question of the earlier buffer zones also needs to be resolved,” the source said.
There is no longer any eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation in eastern Ladakh, with the disengagement now taking place in the last two of the seven major face-off points that arose after PLA’s multiple incursions into eastern Ladakh in April-May 2020 that caught India completely off guard. This will, hopefully, ensure there is no sudden inadvertent vertical escalation on the ground.
The rival armies, however, continue to be ranged against each other all along the 3,488km LAC, with over 50,000 troops from each side forward deployed with tanks, howitzers, surface-to-air missiles and the like in eastern Ladakh.
Another 90,000 PLA troops are similarly forward deployed across Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, with “matching mirror deployments” by India. Talks are also under way to ease the tensions in “sensitive” areas like Yangtse, Asaphila and Subansiri river valley in Arunachal Pradesh, as reported by TOI earlier.
In eastern Ladakh, India wants China to agree to the sequential process of disengagement being followed by de-escalation and then de-induction of forward deployed troops. “The Chinese threat will remain till there is de-induction,” a senior official said.