Rajnath Singh pays tribute to Galwan heroes, says their bravery will inspire coming generations

New Delhi [India], June 15 : Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday paid homage to soldiers who lost their lives in the Galwan Valley clashes three years ago in 2020 and said their sacrifice will continue to inspire coming generations.

Taking to his official Twitter handle, Rajnath Singh wrote, "Today, we pay homage to those brave soldiers who made supreme sacrifice while protecting our nation in Galwan Valley. Their courage, bravery and sacrifice will continue to inspire coming generations".

India lost 20 troops while causing heavy damage to the Chinese Army in the clashes.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that India does not get swayed by coercion, inducements and false narratives, however, he added that India and China must find a way to step back from potential confrontation in the western Himalayas.

Following the clash with the Chinese troops in June 2020, Indian Army formations deployed near the Galwan Valley, along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, have undertaken a range of activities such as surveying border areas to stop a "possible" Chinese aggression, an officer of the Indian Army said.

"The fact is the relationship is impacted, and the relationship will continue to be impacted. If there is any expectation that somehow we will normalise while the border situation is not normal, that's not a well-founded expectation," he said.

Explaining the Galwan clashes, Jaishankar said that the India-China position is "very complicated." He also said that normally, the army is not deployed at LOC but after 2020, it was changed and both sides have done "forward deployment.""We have to resolve this forward deployment issue," he added."These mechanisms continue to do the work because, at the end of the day, disengagement is a very detailed process... all of this would continue to happen," he said.

On the third anniversary of the Galwan Valley clashes, top military officers deployed along the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh held operational discussions to further strengthen the preparedness in the region.

"Commander Lt Gen Upendra Dwivedi, 14 Corps Commander Lt Gen Rashim Bali and One Strike Corps Commander Lt Gen Sanjay Mitra along with other formations deployed there," Army sources said here.

The meeting will discuss the preparedness of the force in the sector bordering China.

The Northern Army Command is in charge of the Ladakh sector and has been provided with a new formation in the form of the One Strike Corps headquartered in Mathura which has its elements spread across the Northern parts of the country.

The Indian and Chinese troops clashed at Galwan in 2020, the same year the pandemic started.

In September 2022, the Indian troops and their counterparts in the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) completed the disengagement process in the Gogra Heights-Hot Springs area near Patrolling Point-15 in the eastern Ladakh sector, government sources had said.

Delhi and Beijing reached an agreement in February 2021 to disengage from the 135-km Pangong Lake, creating buffer zones until all outstanding border issues are resolved, Sputnik, a Russian-based media agency reported earlier.

Over 50,000 Indian soldiers had been stationed since 2020 at forward posts along the LAC, with advanced weapons to prevent any attempts to change the status quo unilaterally on the LAC.

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