BEIJING (AFP): Chinese state media today (Saturday) released dramatic footage that purportedly shows deadly clashes between troops at the Indian border last year.
The video reportedly dates back to June 2020 when Indian and Chinese troops engeged in a confrontation near LAC Ladakh.
Footage showed Indian troops wading through a river towards Chinese soldiers in the barren and ice-covered Karakoram Mountains, carrying sticks and shields reading “police”.
“They have now moved another new tent here,” one soldier says in the video, which claims the Indian side broke the consensus and crossed the line to “provoke” the Chinese soldiers.
Revealing truth on border clashes with India helps understand events pic.twitter.com/zcGC4fxJwM
— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) February 20, 2021
Later, the footage showed a clash between the sides in the dark, before Chinese soldiers are seen treating a man on the floor whose head is covered in blood. The CCTV voiceover said the Chinese soldiers were “heroically sacrificed”.
A bilateral accord prevents the use of guns by either side, and brutal clashes between the two sides on the ill-defined border often involve sticks, rocks and fist-fights. The high-altitude border battle in June was one of the deadliest clashes between the two sides.
China’s defence ministry on Friday named four soldiers killed in the brawl, in the first confirmation of deaths by Beijing from the incident. Battalion commander Chen Hongjun and three other soldiers have been given posthumous awards.
India and China fought a border war in 1962 and have long accused each other of seeking to cross their frontier in India’s Ladakh region, just opposite Tibet.
