‘Won’t allow anyone to come on Indian soil in Ladakh’: Northern Army chief
Meanwhile, Ladakh lieutenant governor Brig (retd) BD Mishra asserted that not an inch of Indian land has been occupied by China in the region
The chief of the Northern Command, Lt Gen Upendra Dwivedi on Monday said that the army is “always operationally prepared” on the Line of Control (LoC) and Line of Actual Control (LAC) with Pakistan and China, respectively, to meet any challenges and asserted that they would not allow anyone to come on the Indian side.
“We are always operationally prepared on the LoC and LAC to meet any challenges with Pakistan and China,” he told media persons at the three-day North Tech Symposium 2023 at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jammu.
Asserting that the situation in Ladakh was “normal and very nice”, he said, “As an army commander of the Northern Command, whatever I am guarding is our area and I will not allow anyone to come on Indian side.”
Meanwhile, lieutenant governor of Ladakh, Brig (retd) BD Mishra, who was also present at the event, said that “not an inch of Indian land has been occupied” by China in the region.
It may be recalled here that senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, during his nine day visit to Ladakh, had accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of peddling lies to the opposition over Chinese incursion in eastern Ladakh- a claim the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government has outrightly rejected.
India and China are locked in a protracted border standoff in eastern Ladakh for the past three years. The ties between the two neighbours nosedived following a deadly clash in Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh in June 2020 when 20 Indian soldiers died in hand-to-hand combat with the Chinese troops. On August 13 and 14, both the countries held 19th round of Corps Commander level meeting at the Chushul-Moldo border.
“I will not comment on what Rahul Gandhi has said but I can comment on what I have seen on the ground. The fact is that not a single inch of land has been occupied,” the LG said.
Lt Gen Dwivedi also said that while the army remained fully prepared at the LoC and LAC, Rashtriya Rifles were doing a “very good” work in CI and CT operations (anti-terror operations) in the hinterland.
He informed that nearly 200 terrorists were waiting across the LoC in Pakistan. “They are waiting to infiltrate but our alert troops are deployed at the borders, and we are trying to eliminate them there itself,” he said.
He said, “46 terrorists were killed in the past nine months, out of whom 37 were foreign terrorists and nine were locals.”
“Despite embroiled in economic crises and other problems, Pakistan continue to fuel terrorism in a bid to disturb peace. Whenever there’s peace, Pakistan tries to disturb it. And, when they don’t get local terrorists, they send foreign terrorists,” he added.
“Owing to our relentless CI and CT operations, people now say that normalcy is in the offing,” he said. He, however, attributed the sudden spike in terrorism in the two border districts of Rajouri and Poonch to Pakistan’s desperation.
On drones, he said, “so far as drone technology is concerned,we have inducted a lot of equipments. Since drone technology keeps improving, we have to enhance our counter drone technology.”
He said that the participants at the symposium have brought with them latest technologies, which will enhance the counter drone technologies of the army, be it software or dynamics.