Deaths of Indian troops in China border clash ‘will not be in vain’, Modi says

The deaths of 20 Indian soldiers in clashes with Chinese troops on the Himalayan border "will not be in vain", Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Wednesday, as the two Asian giants held high-level talks to try to calm escalating tensions.

"I would like to assure the country that the sacrifice of our soldiers will not be in vain. For us, the unity and integrity of the country is the most important ... India wants peace but is capable of giving a reply if provoked," Modi said in a televised address.

It was the Indian prime minister’s first remarks on the deadly clashes between the two nuclear-armed nations following criticisms from opposition leaders and commentators over the Modi administration’s silence.

The two nations' foreign ministers spoke by telephone to try to calm tensions on Wednesday, according to Beijing.

News of the call between China's Wang Yi and India's Subrahmanyam Jaishankar – which was not confirmed by New Delhi – came as sources told AFP that Indian paramilitaries were being deployed to the area of the skirmish high in the Himalayas opposite Tibet.

China has refused to confirm if it suffered any casualties in the first deadly clashes at the border in decades, although Indian media said at least 40 Chinese troops were killed or seriously hurt.

China demands India punish those responsible

The Chinese foreign ministry statement said Wang demanded "India conduct a thorough investigation" and punish those responsible.

"The Indian side must not misjudge the current situation, and must not underestimate China's firm will to safeguard its territorial sovereignty," it added.

The incident, which took place Monday at around 4,500 meters (15,000 feet) in the Galwan valley area, dominated India's rolling news channels on Wednesday and set social media alight.

Protests erupted in several parts of India Wednesday, with demonstrators calling for a boycott of Chinese goods with one burning posters of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Sources told AFP that military transport aircraft had made a number of rare nighttime landings in Leh, capital of India's Ladakh region opposite China's Tibet throughout Tuesday night.

'Hurtling down' ridges

The clashes reportedly involved intense hand-to-hand fighting but no gunfire, in line with longstanding practices aimed at avoiding a full military confrontation over the disputed 3,500-kilometer (2,200-mile) border.

An Indian army source told AFP there were "violent hand-to-hand scuffles" while media said that Chinese troops attacked with rods and nail-studded clubs.

Many of these killed appear to have been punched or shoved off a ridge onto rocks and into an icy river below.

"They came hurtling down like free-falling objects," one source told AFP.

Postmortem examinations on those killed showed that the "primary reason for death is drowning and it looks like they fell from a height into the water because of head injuries", an official told AFP.

Both sides gave competing versions of the violence.

Beijing said Indian troops "crossed the border line twice ... provoking and attacking Chinese personnel", while an Indian foreign ministry spokesman said the clash arose from "an attempt by the Chinese side to unilaterally change the status quo" on the border.

US calls for restraint

The US, which has mounting frictions with China but sees India as an emerging ally, said it was hoping for a "peaceful resolution".

The UN called for both sides to "exercise maximum restraint" while Russia welcomed news of subsequent peaceful contacts between the two neighbors.

India and China have never even agreed on the length of their "Line of Actual Control" frontier.

They fought a brief war in 1962 and deadly clashes followed in 1967 but the last shot fired in anger was in 1975, when four Indians died.

The recent uptick in tensions began in early May, when several Indian and Chinese soldiers were injured in a clash.

Their prickly relationship was also strained in August when India revoked the semi-autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir state and split off Ladakh into a new administrative territory.

Ladakh is partly claimed by Beijing. India, meanwhile, has been irked by China's backing of Pakistan and an economic corridor going through parts of Kashmir controlled by Islamabad but claimed by India.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)