Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that India gave a befitting reply to those who eyed its territory in Ladakh.
The prime minister praised soldiers for their brave fight in the violent face-off between Indian and Chinese forces earlier this month.
“If India knows how to honour friendships, it also knows how to look someone in the eye and confront them,” the prime minister said in an apparent reference to China during his monthly “Mann ki Baat” radio program. “Our brave soldiers have shown that they will let anyone hurt the nation’s honour.”
Twenty Indian soldiers were killed and 76 injured in a violent altercation with Chinese forces in Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on the intervening night of June 15-June 16. The face-off between the two neighbouring countries was the worst instance of violence along the Line of Actual Control since 1975.
There were several reports of Indian soldiers being attacked with iron rods and clubs and thrown into the freezing Galwan river. India also accused China of assembling a large number of troops along the Line of Actual Control.
However, even as India and China continued to speak of disengagement, satellite imagery and multiple news reports confirmed that the Chinese structures that led to the violent clash in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh were back.