Colonel Ajai Shukla has said that his sources have told him the clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers at Yangtse in the Tawang Sector of the eastern border on December 9 led to 35 Indian soldiers having sustained injuries, seven of whom he believes can be called ‘serious.’
Colonel Shukla is one of India’s best informed and most widely read strategic affairs experts, whose detailed information about the India-China clashes in Ladakh in 2020 proved invariably correct.
Col. Shukla said this was “extremely serious (and) definitely not just a patrol clash”.
Whilst explaining that you cannot know for sure how many soldiers were involved on the Chinese side in a clash that happened reportedly at 3 in the morning and, therefore, in the dark, Col. Shukla added when “troops in their hundreds on both sides” clash, it is serious and you cannot minimise or deny that.
In a 25-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Col. Shukla, who is the Strategic Affairs Editor of the Business Standard, clearly contradicted the statement made by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in the Lok Sabha that there were no serious injuries.
Col. Shukla said that his sources have told him the 7 serious injuries have been evacuated to Guwahati.
Col. Shukla told The Wire that the Yangtse area of Tawang is periodically prone to clashes and skirmishes between Indian and Chinese soldiers and this sort of thing has happened several times earlier in the recent past but he added that the incident on Friday the 9th was by far the most serious.
Col. Shukla also said the fact Indian and Chinese commanders held a flag meeting 48 hours after the clash on the 9th is a sign the two armies have responded in a far better way this time compared to the 2020 incidents in Ladakh, when meetings only occurred after several weeks.
Col. Shukla also discounted reports, on at least two television channels, of stepped up Chinese activity. He told The Wire that his sources in Arunachal Pradesh have told him there is no heightened or enhanced Chinese air force activity. He also said the scrambling of jets by the Indian air force is a routine response and we must not read too much into it.
Watch the full interview here.
