India, China to verify disengagement at Hot Springs today

Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, September 12

India and China will jointly verify each other’s positions in the Gogra-Hot Springs area (Patrolling Point-15) in Eastern Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), tomorrow.

The two armies had started the disengagement process at this spot on September 8 and it was to end today. Sources in the military establishment said a physical verification would be carried out tomorrow as troops and officials will verify if the PP-15 has been cleared of all military activities.

PP-15 is one among the many “grey areas” of dispute along the LAC, where both sides have overlapping claims. The two sides are locked in a military stand-off since April 2020.

The physical verification will be carried out to check if all temporary structures and other allied infrastructure created in the PP-15 area by both sides have been dismantled. The landforms in the area will be restored to the pre-standoff period by both sides, meaning that no bunkers, no posts and no weapons should remain there.

The two sides have agreed to take the talks forward and resolve the remaining issues and restore peace along the LAC, Arindam Bagchi, MEA spokesman, had stated on September 9.

The disengagement is happening as it was being speculated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan, scheduled to be held from September 15 to 16.

The two sides have agreed to cease forward deployments in this area in a phased, coordinated and verified manner, resulting in the return of the troops of both sides to their respective areas.

Since April 2021, this is the first positive development on ground to move towards an amicable resolution to the ongoing military standoff.

The next two steps — de-escalation and de-induction — will entail pulling back troops and equipment to the pre-April 2020 levels.