In a major success, India has completed the construction of a strategically crucial bridge over Ladakh’s Galwan river, in a strong opposition to it by the Chinese army, government said on Friday, June 19, News 18 reported.

The 60-metre bridge is nearly four kilometres east of the Shyok and Galwan rivers, and links the narrow region to the Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldi road. It will facilitate faster movement of Indian troops in the area, not very far from the site of the violent clashes in Galwan on June 15.

The construction of the bridge was one of the main reasons behind the aggression by China’s People’s Liberation Army near the Line Of Actual Control that triggered the two-month standoff between the two armies.

‘The bridge will definitely improve movement of Indian troops in the region. We completed construction of the bridge despite the military standoff and Chinese army’s strong protest,’ a senior army official said.

The road has been under construction for over two decades now and has been an important project under the Modi government regime.

At least 20 Indian Army personnel were killed in action in a violent clash between the Chinese Army and the Indian Army in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley on June 15. The face-off was one of the biggest confrontation between the two armies after their clashes in Nathu La in 1967 when India lost nearly 80 soldiers while the death toll on the Chinese side was over 300.

The Chinese soldiers allegedly used stones, nail-studded sticks, iron rods and clubs in the brutal attack on Indian Army personnel after they protested the erection of a surveillance post by China on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control.

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