Amid reports of Chinese troops laying network of optical fibre cables in Ladakh, suggesting they were digging in for the long haul despite high-level talks aimed at resolving a standoff there, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is set to make a statement in Parliament today on the border tensions with China, sources said. The address assumes significance in the backdrop of demands made by the Congress-led Opposition for a debate on the issue.
The minister’s address is expected to take place around 3 pm—at the beginning of the proceedings in the Lok Sabha, government sources said.
The matter was raised on Sunday at Parliament’s Business Advisory Committee meeting, meant to discuss and slot agenda for business for the monsoon session.
Meanwhile despite high-level talks, news agency Reuters quoted two Indian officials as saying that Chinese troops were laying a network of optical fibre cables. Such cables, which would provide forward troops with secure lines of communication to bases in the rear, have recently been spotted to the south of Pangong Tso Lake in eastern Ladakh, a senior government official said.
China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to questions on the matter from Reuters, while defence officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
A third Indian official said ‘nominal fine’ on Monday that there had been no significant withdrawals or reinforcements on either side since the foreign ministers of the two countries met last week. “It is as tense as earlier,” he told Reuters.
“Our biggest worry is that they have laid optical fibre cables for high-speed communications,” the first official said, referring to the lake’s southern bank, where Indian and Chinese troops are only a few hundred metres apart at some points. “They have been laying optical fibre cables on the southern bank at breakneck speed,” he said.
Indian intelligence agencies noted similar cables to the north of the Pangong Tso lake around a month ago, the second government official said.
The first Indian government official said the authorities were alerted to such activity after satellite imagery showed unusual lines in the sand of the high- altitude deserts to the south of Pangong Tso.
These lines were judged by Indian experts—and corroborated by foreign intelligence agencies—to be communication cables laid in trenches, he said, including near the Spanggur gap, among hilltops where soldiers fired in the air recently for the first time in decades.
With agency inputs