THE TIBETAN GHOST WARRIORS

p until last week, it appeared that the military U standoff between India and China in eastern

Ladakh was settling into an uneventful deep freeze as winter approached.

Nearly a dozen rounds of talks between both sides had failed to resolve a deadlock, mainly because the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China refused to pull back its troops to their positions before April 2020. The deadlock was acute along the north bank of the Pangong Tso where the PLA had moved forward by nearly eight kilometres to a point known as Finger 4.

Then, on the night of August 30, the situation changed dramatically. The Indian Army, accompanied by special forces, occupied five key features along a ridgeline south of the Pangong lake—Helmet, Kala Top, Camel’s Back, Gurung Hill and Requin La. These five strategic features are in an area India considers to be within its perception of the LAC (Line of Actual Control). An Indian Army statement on August 31 said that they had ‘thwarted Chinese intentions to alter the ground situation’. ‘The Chinese had violated