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LADAKH: The Indian military has said that it had handed back a Chinese soldier held near a remote Himalayan border after swift demand by the Chinese government.
The Indian military had apprehended the Chinese soldier near the Himalayan border where thousands of troops from the two nuclear-armed neighbors have been facing off for months after a deadly clash.
The Indian Army said in a statement, “The People’s Liberation Army of China (PLA) soldier who had been apprehended on Jan 8, 2021, has been handed back to China at Chushul-Moldo at 10:10 am today.”
On Saturday, China had called for the swift return of a soldier who had gone missing a day earlier along the border, adding it had reported the incident to Indian authorities. Indian Army said the Chinese soldier had been arrested by the Indian Army south of Pangong Tso Lake in the western Himalayan region of Ladakh, which borders Chinese-controlled Tibet.
In October 2020, another Chinese soldier was briefly held by Indian forces in the same region. It is the second detention on the high altitude border since the pitched combats in June in which 20 Indian Army soldiers and an unidentified number of Chinese forces were killed.
India and China have since poured tens of thousands of troops and heavy weaponry into the tension region in the Ladakh area. In 1962, India and China have disputed their frontier for seven decades and fought a brief war. They blame each other for the current standoff.
The two neighbors have held several rounds of disengagement talks but failed to ease the military buildup. India’s foreign ministry said on Friday that the two sides have agreed to a new round of talks between senior commanders.
“In the meantime, both sides have maintained communication at the ground level to avoid any misunderstandings and misjudgments,” it said in a statement.