As the tense standoff between India and China continues even in brutal Himalayan winter, there has been a steady rise in international stories focussing on the border issue. Unlike the national media reporting about the disengagement talks by military officers of the both countries, some media outlets are talking about bizarre occurrences at the Ladakh border. The Press Information Bureau of the government took notice of such stories and fact checked them. On its official Twitter handle, the PIB posted the screenshots of two such media reports that said that the PLA troops had allegedly used ‘microwave weapons’ to remove the Indian soldiers from the heights in Chushul area of Ladakh region.

One of the screenshots was of a report by well-known British newspaper. The report had sourced it’s information about the ‘microwave weapons’ from a Chinese professor working at the Renmin University in Beijing. The report identified that professor as Jin Canrong. He apparently told his class during a lecture that the Chinese forces deployed the ‘microwave weapons’ and regained the critical heights in Himalayas without firing a single bullet. The PIB has termed the reports and completely false and inaccurate. Terming the reports as ‘misleading’, the PIB said that this was a ‘misinformation’ and no such thing occurred at the border.

The Indian Army has also posted the same on its official Twitter handle and called the reports ‘Fake.’ The Indian Army has said that usage of the microwave weapons by the Chinese was completely ‘baseless.’

The two Asian superpowers are locked in one of the most intense border stand-off in recent times. While India is insisting China to return to the troops’ April positions, the PLA is refusing to do so. On the intervening night of June 14-15, the stand-off turned bloody when 20 brave soldiers were martyred and China suffered casualities as well. Till date, China has not official either acknowledged the Galwan incident or spoken about casualties on its side.