PLA soldiers that have established themselves at the mouth of the Galwan River valley at its confluence with the Shyok River are just one-and-a-half kilometres from the DSDBO road.
The PLA apparently intends to dominate this road permanently. Even as top Chinese officials declare the issue can be resolved through dialogue, PLA intruders are building bunkers while PLA engineers are connecting their forward troops with China's formidable road infrastructure on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), according to Shukla.
Government sources conservatively estimate that the PLA has captured more than 60 square kilometres of Indian-patrolled territory in the last month - equally divided between the northern bank of the Pangong Lake and the Galwan River sectors, Shukla said adding:
Chinese troops now block access to several Indian "Patrolling Points" (PPs) along the LAC, which Indian army patrols have regularly visited for decades to assert their claim over the area.
After the Kargil intrusions of 1999, which an enquiry blamed on "intelligence failure", not a single general lost his job or was replaced. The army pinned the entire blame on a single brigadier in Kargil, Shukla pointed out.
The Kargil conflict ended after then United States president Bill Clinton urged the Pakistani government to start pulling back from Kargil when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, announced a unilateral ceasefire on July 4, 1999.
An un-named retired defence intelligence chief was quoted as saying: "The Chinese have always been ultra-sensitive to India expanding its presence in northern Ladakh. That is because this adjoins the Aksai Chin, through which China has constructed its strategic Western Highway that connects Tibet with Xinjiang."
Within the army, there is growing concern that New Delhi will allow the Chinese to retain the territory they have occupied in the last month, Shukla concluded and added: In public statements last week, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has already conceded that the alignment of the LAC, and therefore the ownership of territory, is unclear in this area.
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