Brutal details emerge of India soldier 'ambush' on contested border with China as Modi tries to calm tension. Joe Wallen, The Telegraph.
As the sun began to set over the Himalayan peaks, Colonel Santosh Babu and his unarmed platoon of 50 Indian soldiers on Monday set off on a patrol across the strategically crucial Galwan Valley in Ladakh.
Their mission was probably the most important in recent Indian history - to ascertain whether Chinese troops had withdrawn, as per an agreement between senior army officers from the two nations, from territory which had previously been administered by India for decades.Instead, to their surprise, what Colonel Babu's men found were temporary Chinese all-weather tents and roughly enemy 100 soldiers waiting at a location called Patrolling Point 14.
Despite being outnumbered, the Indian soldiers confronted the Chinese troops. Some started to remove the tents, sparking a long and brutal man-to-man brawl that has brought the two superpowers to the brink of war. ...
“Just when the Indian soldiers, who were on patrol started removing Chinese tents and material, it evoked a violent response from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)”.
As the fight continued, both sides called for reinforcements but Chinese troops again significantly outnumbered those on the Indian side, allegedly 500 to 100....
Indian Army sources told the Telegraph that 23 troops are now confirmed to have died but casualties will significantly rise, with 110 soldiers injured and more troops still missing....
The Indian sources say China suffered 35 casualties during the clash, quoting U.S intelligence material, a development Beijing said it wasn’t aware of.
The above is the most unprofessional piece of reporting with hazy and garbled facts and fuzzy numbers. How did the reporter gathered these facts? From slippery tongue witnesses of course. Now wonder all the facts were so funny and illogical and the numbers as good as guess work.
Read this, the 50 Indian soldiers were on a survey mission. But they ended up removing the tents of Chinese soldiers while being outnumbered. How arrogant to start such an aggressive act, to walk into Chinese camp to remove the tents of soldiers of another country. Who did these Indian soldiers think they were? Such hostile acts would definitely invite retaliation from the Chinese side. And the Indian news all over are still claiming that they were provoked by Chinese soldiers. Isn't it clear who were the aggressors? In this report the heading was 'ambush'. What utter rubbish! Does the reporter know the meaning of ambush?
And look at the numbers, 50 Indian soldiers provoking 100 Chinese soldiers. Though both called for reinforcement, with claims that there were 500 Chinese soldiers to 100 Indian soldiers, and only 23 Indian casualties against 35 Chinese casualties. The numbers gets more confusing with the Indians claiming 110 soldiers injured and more are missing. How many more? It seems that this brawl would have involved at least a few hundred soldiers from the Indian side and 5 times more from the Chinese side. That would be around a 1000 men involved in the fight from an initial 50 Indians against 100 Chinese.
And the funny thing, the Indians did not know how many casualties were from the Chinese side but the Americans that were not there were able to provide the number of Chinese casualties. The Americans must be Gods, omniprescience, all knowing. And the Indians damn were bloody good fighters, outnumbered 500 to 100 but able to inflict more casualties on the Chinese side, and they were ambushed!
Slippery tongues indeed. Talk like real. What is real? Who started the fight or provocation? How come all the great fighting Indians landed up in the river but not the Chinese? Is the reporter saying that the Indian soldiers were all pushed into the river by the Chinese soldiers?