India will retaliate if its defences on heights are breached, sources told NDTV today after repeated Chinese provocations at the Line of Actual Control, the de facto border with China. “Nowhere are we under-prepared presently,” top government sources told NDTV.

The Chinese, the officials said, will “try to do something to regain lost ground”, and their action is “being controlled by their top, not local exuberant commanders”.

“Why the Chinese are opening so many fronts, we don’t understand,” sources said. The army has put barbed wire on the Indian positions. “If Chinese try to cross it’ll be crossing a red-line,” sources said.

The Indian Army is now dominating the heights on Chinese deployment on Finger 4, which is located on the north bank of the Pangong lake, sources said.  

For more than two weeks, the Chinese action has been focused on the south bank of Pangong lake.

Currently, of the 50,000 Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh, 5,000 to 7,000 soldiers are stationed in South Pangong. The distance between soldiers on Finger 4   is a “few hundred meters”