China, the country that announced the disengagement of its troops with those of India in Eastern Ladakh weeks ago, has been notorious the world over for not being a trustable nation, especially in the era of belligerent President Xi Jinping. Now, a new report has pointed towards a treacherous act of two of India’s adversarial neighbours, Pakistan and China. According to an India Today report, Pakistan’s intel agency has been snooping on the Chenab Bridge in Jammu and Kashmir at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party-led communist nation.
It’s reported that two countries are busy collecting information about the Indian bridge, which is yet to be opened for public usage and will ensure a strategic advantage to India in the disturbed border region.
The report said that Pakistan’s intelligence agency, under directions from China, is accumulating particulars of the bridge that links the Reasi and Ramban districts of the Indian region.
Chenab Bridge is the world’s tallest railway bridge and is expected to enhance connectivity between Jammu and Kashmir and the rest of India.
The report added that important information about the bridge is being collected by both Pakistani and Chinese intelligence agencies.
It took over 20 years for the government to finish the bridge in Jammu’s Reasi district.
The bridge, which is part of a 272-kilometer all-weather railway section, was built in 20 years, and at present trials are on to run the trains on it successfully.
At present, the road connecting Kashmir to the rest of the country is often cut off during winter months as heavy snowfall leads to blockades on the highway.
It’s also a major infrastructure boost for India as the Himalayan region of Kashmir has been a flashpoint between India and Pakistan for a long time.
Since independence, India and Pakistan have fought war twice over Kashmir. Since 1989, Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and radicalization industry has claimed thousands of lives in the Kashmir valley.
Meanwhile, India and China have completed disengagement in the Depsang and Demchok regions of Eastern Ladakh with patrolling expected to be starting soon.
The armies of the two neighboring countries also exchanged sweets among the troops on the occasion of Diwali. The sources from the Indian Army on Wednesday said that the verification process is on and the modalities of patrolling will be decided by the ground commanders.
However, the alarming report alerting the nation about China’s clandestine and treacherous designs rekindles the dark chapters of its 1971 betrayal when it launched a military attack at a time when the Hindi Chini bhai bhai narrative was in full swing in the country. While the political landscape and military capabilities have drastically improved especially in the last decade, the positive developments — disengagement at the LAC — vis-a-vis China will continue to be put to the test with a well-established notion, of ‘trust but verify’, rather in the Chinese case, planning for a contingency of betrayal and the much-deliberated challenge of two-front threat.