South Asia and Beyond

Tulung La, 1975: A Blue Flag, Gun-Wielding Chinese & Torture Of 4 Indian Soldiers

NEW DELHI: In the long history of India-China boundary dispute, a few incidents remain a landmark. The 1962 war is the biggest of them all; the 1967 clash at Nathu La in Sikkim is another. But another episode of a bloody encounter between Indian and Chinese soldiers that happened in Arunachal Pradesh in 1975 is not so well known. It is recorded in public domain as the last time before 2020 when shots were fired on the disputed border. Four soldiers of the para-military force Assam Rifles were killed. There is no information on how many Chinese–if at all–were killed in that clash. For the first time, we bring you the real story of what happened on 20 October 1975 at a remote mountain pass called Tulung La. Col Baliram Shah (Retd), then Commanding the 3/1 Gorkha Rifles unit at Sela was given the job of retrieving the bodies of the four soldiers. He narrates the incident in detail to Nitin A. Gokhale, Editor-in-Chief of Stratnews Global

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Nitin A. Gokhale

Left to himself, Nitin A. Gokhale would rather watch films and sports matches but his day job as a media entrepreneur, communications specialist, analyst and author, leaves him little time to indulge in his primary interests. Gokhale in fact started his career in journalism in 1983 as a sports reporter. Since then he has, in the past 41 years, traversed the entire spectrum across print, broadcast and digital space. One of South Asia's leading strategic analysts, Gokhale has moved on from conventional media to become an independent media entrepreneur running three niche digital platforms—BharatShakti, StratNewsGlobal and Interstellar—besides undertaking consultancy and training workshops in communications for military institutions, corporates and individuals. Now better known for his conflict coverage and strategic analyses, Gokhale has lived and reported from India’s North-east for 23 years between 1983 and 2006, been on the ground at Kargil in the summer of 1999 and also brought us live coverage from Sri Lanka’s Eelam War IV between 2006-2009.    An alumni of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Hawaii, Gokhale now writes, lectures and analyses security and strategic matters in Indo-Pacific and travels regularly to US, Europe, Australia, South and South-East Asia to take part in various seminars and conferences. Gokhale is also a popular visiting faculty at India’s Defence Services Staff College, the three war colleges, India's National Defence College, College of Defence Management and the IB’s intelligence school.

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