New Delhi: India and China have completed disengagement from the two face-off points of Depsang and Demchok in eastern Ladakh, pulling back troops to the pre-2020 positions and also dismantling all check posts, defensive positions, housing and shelters created in the last four and a half years.
Army sources said that ground commanders (brigadiers and below) from both sides would meet Thursday on Diwali to exchange sweets at all border personnel meeting (BPM) points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
The sources also said that ground commanders would decide patrolling modalities, which would commence soon.
The sources said the Indian patrol was likely to visit patrolling points in Depsang Plains during the weekend or early next year. This would be followed in Demchok as well, they added.
The corps commanders from both sides had signed an agreement on 21 October to disengage in Depsang and Demchok and to restart patrolling.
This came after a larger framework was firmed up on the diplomatic front to ease tensions at the LAC.
The Indian Army on Monday carried out a “physical verification” of the Chinese pullout, breaking down all additional structures created since 2020 in the Depsang Plains and Demchok.
Both countries have since then carried out physical verification, and also monitoring through drones.
The sources explained that the idea was to build back the trust between the two sides.
While Indian soldiers were mostly stopped from the patrolling points in Depsang Plains in mid-2017 from an area called the Y-Junction, they managed to push their way through in January 2020.
As reported by ThePrint, a decision has been taken to limit the patrolling to twice a month with active cooperation from both sides.
Patrolling in buffer zones
Even though Army sources emphasised that the agreement was specific to only Depsang and Demchok, sources told ThePrint that an understanding had also been reached for restarting patrolling in areas where buffer zones were created — northern banks of Pangong Tso, Galwan Valley, Hot Springs, Gogra—where disengagement took place by September 2022.
Indian and Chinese military commanders were still in talks over patrolling in the earlier-created buffer zones, and that would be a separate agreement, the Army sources said.
An understanding has also been reached for allowing “escorted patrolling” of the Chinese in the contested Yangtse region of Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang and possibly in one more area.
It was not immediately known when this process would start. Yangtse is now heavily dominated by the Indian Army. Prior to 2020, the Chinese army would patrol to a particular point in Yangtse, one of the contested points along the LAC.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)