India moves missiles closer to border with China: Report

India has moved its long-range missiles closer to its common border with China, a report says, as relations between the two nuclear-armed countries remain strained over the disputed common border in the Himalayan region.

Hindustan Times quoted unnamed sources as saying in a report on Thursday that India has moved a limited number of domestically-built terrain-hugging Nirbhay missiles with a range of 1,000 kilometers to the Line of Actual Control (LAC), where Indian troops have been locked in a tense standoff with China’s People’s Liberation Army.

The LAC was established after a war in 1962, but it remains poorly defined and has been the scene of sporadic clashes over the decades, without involving cross-border firing however.

The sources added that India would formally induct the Nirbhay subsonic cruise missiles into the Indian Army and Navy as soon as the seventh trial of the missiles is successfully completed next month.

The Indian missile has a single shot kill ratio of more than 90 percent, further said the sources, whose remarks came just hours after the Indian army test-fired an extended-range BrahMos surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile, which is said to be capable of hitting targets 400 kilometers away.

Relations between India and China took a turn for the worse after a clash in the Ladakh region in May led to the death of 20 Indian troops. The two sides have held several rounds of talks to restore calm, while simultaneously pouring reinforcements into the region.

According to the report, China has deployed missiles capable of hitting targets as far as 2,000 kilometers away, and long-range surface-to-air missiles in Tibet and Xinjiang regions following the Ladakh standoff.

On Wednesday, the two neighbors held the 5th round of diplomatic talks on the LAC standoff, and once again emphasized the need to implement a “consensus” to disengage and set the stage for the next higher-level talks.

In a statement, India said that both sides had agreed that the consensus had to be implemented at “all the friction points along the LAC.”

Earlier this week, New Delhi had said that it had “never accepted the so-called unilaterally defined 1959 LAC,” describing it as “untenable.” The angry reaction came after Beijing once again said that it did not recognize the Union Territory of Ladakh.

SS