Guwahati: After Beijing opted to have Qi Fabao, a PLA regiment commander who had a brain injury while fighting in the Galwan Valley border conflict with India, as the torchbearer during the ‘Torch Relay,’ India announced a diplomatic ban on the Beijing Winter Olympics on Thursday.
During his weekly media conference, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokeswoman Arindam Bagchi said that India’s senior diplomat in Beijing will not attend the event’s opening and closing ceremonies, describing the choice as “regrettable.”
“Yes, we have seen the reports on this subject,” he replied. It is sad that China has chosen to politicise an event as important as the Olympics.”
“I wish to inform that the Charge affairs of the Embassy of India in Beijing will not be attending the opening or the closing ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics,” he added.
However, in one of the fiercest fights that took place in June 2020 in the Galwan Valley of Ladakh’s eastern sector, India lost 20 soldiers in action, the deadliest since the 1962 war.