Army strengthens Mountain Strikes Corps looking after China border

Further strengthening its deployments along the Northern borders, the Indian Army is adding around 10,000 more troops to its only mountain strike corps responsible for looking after offensive operations along the China border.

The strengthening of the Mountain Strike Corps is part of the steps taken by the force to rebalance its focus more towards the Chinese border from the western front with Pakistan.

An existing Division formation, with around 10,000 troops, located in the Eastern sector has now been assigned to the 17 Mountain Strike Corps headquartered in West Bengal's Panagarh, government sources said.

"The Mountain Strike Corps was cleared by the Centre about a decade ago but it had only one division attached to it and with the latest step, it will now have more firepower and manpower at its disposal to carry out its assigned task," they said.

The army has also done a lot of rebalancing in the recent past and a number of formations have been given dual tasks and asked to focus more towards the China border which erupted last year due to the Chinese aggression in eastern Ladakh and other areas.

Meanwhile, the Indian Army and other security forces have also started returning to the summer deployments in the Ladakh sector and other mountainous areas along the Line of Actual Control.

Both Indian and Chinese armies have a large number of troops deployed at the border since last year.

The formations of Mathura-based One Strike Corps have also been reoriented towards the Northern borders while one of its Armoured formations would continue to be with it.

The deployment of formations and troops in the Sugar sector, central sector and the north eastern borders have also been strengthened.

Due to the Indian tactical operations along the southern bank of Pangong Tso, the Indian Army managed to secure disengagement from the Finger area, the two sides are continuing to hold talks for further disengagement and de-escalation from other friction points in the area.

India is demanding disengagement at the Gogra, Hot Springs and Depsang plains area by the Chinese Army for which the 11th round of corps commander talks are being held in Chisholm on Friday.