India, China soldiers involved in border altercation: Indian sources

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The Srinagar-Leh highway that connects Kashmir with the Indian region of Ladakh. The average snow buildup in the rocky territory normally stays in the level of 15 to 25 meters. Closed for a half of each year, the highway usually opens up in late spring and travelers on the pass have to deal with snowstorms, fierce air currents, and dangerous circumstances.

China’s defense and foreign ministries did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The two sides have frequently accused each other of intrusions into each other’s territories, but clashes are rare. The Indian military declined to comment on the incident.

“There was an altercation near the Pangong lake,” said a police officer in Srinagar, the capital of India’s Jammu and Kashmir state, under which the area falls. An army source in Srinagar also spoke of an altercation following what he called a Chinese army “incursion in Pangong lake area”.

The two armies are already engaged in a standoff in the Doklam plateau further east, in another part of their 3,500 km (2,175 mile) unmarked mountain border.

China has repeatedly asked India to unilaterally withdraw from the Doklam area, or else face the prospect of an escalation. Chinese state media have warned India of a fate worse than its crushing defeat in a brief border war in 1962.

The trouble started in June when India sent troops to stop China building a road in the Doklam area, which is remote, uninhabited territory claimed by both China and India’s ally Bhutan.