Earlier Friday, Rahul Gandhi had questioned the government over its agreement with China on disengagement of troops in eastern Ladakh. "Why has he asked the Defense Minister to make the statement, the Prime Minister should say - I have given Indian land to China, this is the truth," he said adding: it has emerged that Indian troops are now going to be stationed at Finger 3 at Pangong Tso lake.
"Finger-4 is our territory, that is where our post used to be. So, now we have moved from finger-4 to finger-3. Why has Prime Minister Modi given up Indian Territory to the Chinese? This is the question that needs to be answered by him and by the Defense Minister," Gandhi said.
"PM is a coward who cannot stand up to the Chinese. He is betraying the sacrifice of our Army. Nobody in India should be allowed to do it," he said.
Gandhi's attack on the Modi government came a day after Defense Minister Rajnath Singh shared with Parliament details of the pact to defuse the tense military face-off in eastern Ladakh that severely strained ties between the two Asian giants.
In the House, Singh also mentioned that there are still some outstanding issues regarding the deployment on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the region, which will be taken up in future talks.
As part of the process, Chinese troops will pull back from Finger 4 to east of Finger 8 on the Pangong north bank - they had come in 8 km west of Finger 8 which India says marks the LAC, Indian Express said. Indian troops will be stationed at Dhan Singh Thapa Post near Finger 3. For the time being, the stretch separating them will be a no-patrolling zone.
The border standoff between the Indian and Chinese militaries erupted on May 5 following a violent clash in the Pangong lake areas and escalated post the Galwan incident, in which 20 Indian soldiers and an unspecified number of Chinese soldiers lost their lives. Both sides subsequently enhanced their deployment by rushing in tens of thousands of soldiers as well as heavy weaponry even as the two sides continued military and diplomatic talks.
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