New Delhi:
China has built a station to monitor the movement of Indian planes at the Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) sector in Ladakh near the Line of Actual Control, the site of a major standoff with Chinese troops in April, PTI reports
This comes less than three months after the Indian Air Force, in a strong message to China, landed its C-130J Super Hercules transport plane at the DBO airstrip, which is the world's highest.
In border meetings, China has described the structure as a "weather station", but Indian officials have argued that there is no civilian population in the area.
Indian technical experts, who have been monitoring the structure closely, believe it could be a radar station which did not exist before. No signal has been emitted or received from the station so far.
China reportedly stepped up work on the structure after the Indian Air Force landed its Hercules plane on August 20. Sources say the Hercules has made at least seven landings so far in the area. It is capable of carrying up to 20 tonnes of load.
The airfield was reactivated by the IAF in 2008 with the landing of an Antonov-32 aircraft there from Chandigarh.
In April this year, about 50 Chinese soldiers had crossed the Line of Actual Control or the de-facto border and set up a remote camp at Daulat Beg Oldie in the Depsang Valley, 19 kilometres into Indian territory. On May 6, both sides agreed to pull forces back to positions held before the confrontation, ending the 21 day stand-off.
The Depsang Valley region is highly strategic and abuts the Karakoram Highway joining Pakistan to China, which Beijing hopes to develop into a high-traffic trade route linking it to the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar.