Indian Army realigns troops in Ladakh along LAC

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The war-fighting elements of the new division have been finalised. Raising the new division — the 72 Infantry Division — will not entail adding any manpower. It will only be about re-tasking existing Brigades in eastern Ladakh, sources said.

Following the military stand-off with China in April 2020, the Army had moved around several of its units to Ladakh. This included the 6 Mountain Brigade from Bareilly and some resources of the Mathura-based 1 Strike Corps, the sources said. These resources include armoured formations and infantry combat vehicles, besides troops.

The 72 Infantry Division is expected to subsume some of these elements to consolidate troop numbers.

A division of Army has about 15,000 men, besides equipment. It is headed by a Major General-rank officer and has three or four brigades, each headed by a Brigadier.

The 72 Infantry Division will be part of the Leh-based 14 Corps, deployed on both fronts — China and Pakistan. Its area of responsibility is the 832 km of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China; the Line of Control with Pakistan in the Drass-Kargil-Batalik sector; and the Siachen Glacier. The 14 Corps has two divisions — the 8th Mountain Division, tasked to the LoC, and the 3rd Infantry Division, tasked to the LAC in eastern Ladakh.

Okayed by the government in 2017, the 72 Infantry Division was to be part of the 17 Mountain Strike Corps with its headquarters in Pathankot. Under the re-alignment, it will be based in eastern Ladakh, said the sources, adding that the headquarters of the division were being raised and officers and men had been assigned.

This is the second re-jig the Army has effected since the stand-off with China. In October 2021, the entire 545 km of LAC in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand was brought under the control of Central Command headquartered at Lucknow.

The Bareilly-based ‘Uttar-Bharat’ area was made responsible for the security at the LAC in these two hill states and an important strike division of the Western Command was assigned to Central Command. Earlier, the LAC in Himachal was the domain of the Western Command, Chandimandir.

The Western Command and its three Corps — the 2 Strike Corps Ambala, 11 Corps at Jalandhar and the 9 Corps at Yol (near Palampur, HP) — were tasked to only "look westwards".