FILE
Chinese choppers have been spotted across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Galwan Valley in Eastern Ladakh where India and China had a faceoff, news agency ANI quoted sources as saying. The chopper activity was to airlift casualties suffered by the Chinese side during the face-off.
About 20 Indian soldiers were martyred in the deadly clash while 43 casualties, including dead and seriously injured, were reported by ANI on the Chinese side.
According to a senior military officer, it is the first incident involving the casualty of an Indian soldier in a violent clash with the Chinese Army after 1975 when four Indian soldiers were killed in an ambush at Tulung La in Arunachal Pradesh.
Late on Tuesday, the Indian Army confirmed 20 casualties. The Army, in an official statement, said that Indian and Chinese troops have disengaged at the Galwan area. "Indian & Chinese troops have disengaged at Galwan area where they had earlier clashed on the night of 15/16 June. 17 Indian troops who were critically injured in the line of duty at stand-off location and exposed to sub-zero temperatures in the high altitude terrain have succumbed to their injuries, taking the total that were killed in action to 20. Indian Army is firmly committed to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the nation," the statement read.
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