NEW DELHI, 26 January 2022, (TON): China is building a bridge across the Pangong Lake in the frontier region of Ladakh in Indian-administered Kashmir, raising fresh security concerns in India.

Indian media allegedly reports said last week “the 400-metre-long and 8-metre-wide bridge being constructed near the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto border between the two nuclear powers, was spotted through high resolution satellite images.

India’s foreign ministry said “the bridge is being constructed in areas that have been under the illegal occupation by China for around 60 years now.”

It said that the Indian government was monitoring the construction activity closely.

Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi told reporters earlier this month “the government has been taking all necessary steps to ensure that our security interests are fully protected.”

India and China are locked in a military standoff along the LAC in Ladakh region since April 2020, when the two sides accused each other of trespassing.

The standoff turned deadly in June that year when 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley in a rare hand-to-hand combat using clubs and rocks.