Following the brutal exchange between the Indian Armys and People Liberation Army of China in the Galwan Valley recorded on 15th June 2020 in which the Chinese forces are reported to suffer forty-three causalities while twenty brave hearts from the Indian side were killed in action. It is informed that the Northern Command has started the process of arming the defense personnel at the borders with lightweight riot gear.
According to the inputs available, this gear is supposed to be consisting, “padded polycarbonate inserts and protects wearers from, significantly, sharp objects and stones.”
As of now, the initial shipment comprised a total of five hundred sets of protective equipment’s which covers the entire body of the soldiers. This equipment has been procured from a domestic supplier based in Mumbai and airlifted to Leh where this equipment will be disseminated among the strong army men deployed on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
In a report published on IndiaToday, an anonymous defense expert was quoted expressing his apprehension over equipping the personnel with riot gear, “It means changing an armys man’s mindset into a policeman’s,”
The barbaric attack by the People’s Liberal Army notably involved the use of spikes covered clubs. In the previous month to the Chinese Armys involved the usage “clubs wrapped with barbed wire” in an attack upon the Indian forces as the tension rose near the Pangong Lake. In this incident, too many Indian army personnel were injured gravely.
Interestingly, the usage of this medieval style of war by the PLA involving clubs studded with spikes is actually a strategy of China to bypass and exploit a loophole in the peace agreement treating along the border as they killed and injured many Indian soldiers without using any firearms. Both the sides have interpreted the clause for maintenance of ‘peace and tranquillity’ along the border to be restricted to preventing firing a shot. Historically, the Sino Indian border saw the last exchange of firearms forty-five years ago when “a PLA patrol ambushed a party of Assam Rifles killing four soldiers.”
