The Indian army said Saturday that China had liberated missing Indian citizens before this month from the eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh amid latent tensions between the two countries along a disputed mountainous border.
The men were hunters and will be quarantined for 14 days as a precautionary measure against the coronavirus before passing them on to their families, the army said in a statement.
The Chinese state newspaper Global Times disputed India’s claims and said released men were intelligence agents disguised as hunters.
The five men disappeared on 2 September, adding to the already high tensions between India and China, which have been locked in bitter stagnation for months in the Ladakh region, where they had their deadliest confrontation in decades in June.
Since last week, Asian giants have accused themselves of sending infantrymen into rival territory and firing warning shots for the first time in forty-five years, threatening a large-scale military conflict.
On Friday, foreign ministers from India and China agreed to ease border tensions, and resolving the deadlock is expected to be a long process.
The two nations waged a border war in 1962 that spread to Ladakh and ended in a complicated truce. Since then, troops have kept border dominance indefinite, fighting and agreed not to attack with firearms.
Rival infantrymen fought in May and June with clubs, stones and their fists. A clash on an upper ridge on June 15 left 20 Indian infantrymen dead. China also reportedly suffered casualties, but did not provide figures.
After the confrontation, the two sides disassociated the two sides from the Galwan Valley and at least two other places, but the crisis continued.