NEW DELHI, Jan 11: India has returned the Chinese soldier who was apprehended after straying into Indian side of the Line of Actual Control in the Chushul sector in Ladakh on Friday, was returned to the Chinese authorities on Monday.
The capture of the soldier comes amid a massive deployment of troops by the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in eastern Ladakh in view of the tense border standoff that erupted following a clash between the two sides in the Pangong lake area in early May.
On Saturday China had called for immediate return of the soldier claiming that he “went astray” in the China-India border areas. “Due to darkness and complicated geography, a soldier of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army frontier defence force went astray in the China-India border early Friday morning,” China military online, an official website of the PLA said.
On October 19 last year, Indian troops had captured a Chinese soldier after he “strayed” across the LAC in the Demchok sector of Ladakh. Corporal Wang Ya Long of the PLA was handed back to China at Chushul-Moldo border point in eastern Ladakh following laid down protocols.
(Manas Dasgupta)