The Indian Army on Tuesday, 17 November refuted claims of a Chinese professor \ that China defeated Indian forces in the Indo-China border of Line of Actual Control, eastern Ladakh using microwave weapons.
According to a report published by British daily, The Times, in a lecture at Renmin University in Beijing, Jin Canrong, a professor of international relations, claimed that Chinese troops turned two strategic hilltops into a “microwave oven”, forcing India to retreat without an exchange of fire.
The Indian Army maintains that China is propelling fake news and that India has maintained control in LAC. “It could either be just bravado or the platform to use to launch the psyops,” an Indian official told the Washington Examiner.
In a tweet posted by the Indian Army and Additional Directorate General of Public Information (ADG PI) on Tuesday, 17 November, they said, “The claims cited by these media reports are fake. No such incident has taken place in Ladakh.”
Professor Jin’s Alleged Version Of Events Between India and China Troops
The professor claimed that the People’s Liberation Army did not publicise the problem because they solved it “beautifully” and neither did the Indian army because they “lost miserably”, reported The Times.
Professor Jin claimed that in a surprise attack on 29 August, India deployed Tibetan soldiers who seized two critical hilltops on the southern bank of the Pangong Tso Lake with their expert mountaineering skills. In response to this attack, the Chinese military was furious and ordered the soldiers to take back the ground without a single shot being fired.
He also alleged that the Chinese troops honoured the no-live-shot rule of the border dispute, and thus they seized the ground by firing weapons from the bottom of the hills, therefore turning the “mountain tops into a microwave oven”, reported The Times.
“In 15 minutes, those occupying the hilltops all began to vomit. They couldn’t stand up, so they fled. This was how we retook the ground,” said Jin Canrong, according to a report by The Times.
The UK daily also reported that microwave weapons can cause irritation and pain by using high frequency electro-magnetic pulses or beams at targets.
MEA’s Stance About the 29 August Events Between India And China
The Chinese professor claimed that the attack happened on 29 August, but an Indian official told the Washington Examiner that no such attack ever took place.
“If they got us out of the heights, why is China still asking India to withdraw from these heights? Our soldiers and tanks/equipment still there, and we have not moved down from heights,” an Indian official said to the Washington Examiner.
Chinese officials seemed to acknowledge that India was in control of the disputed area during the alleged 29 August incident. Beijing declared it had “kept maximum restraint to prevent potential escalation” and called on India “to immediately withdraw all personnel who illegally trespassed across the LAC, and stop taking any actions that may escalate tensions or complicate matters”, reported The Hindu.
India’s Ministry Of External Affairs (MEA) had previously acknowledged that “Chinese troops had engaged in provocative action on 31 August”, whilst discussions between the two country’s ground commanders were on-going. The Indian army to pre-empt these moves took measures to strengthen its position near the south bank of Pangong Lake in Ladakh, reported The Hindu.
The Indian Army and Chinese troops have been in a nearly seven month stand-off since early May along LAC in Eastern Ladakh. There has been heightened tensions between the two countries since the Galwan valley clash in June this year, in which 20 Indian soldiers lost their lives. Both countries are currently in process of negotiating a disengagement of the border stand-off.
(With inputs from The Times (UK), Washington Examiner, The Hindu and ANI)
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