Indians slam PM Modi for staying silent over Ladakh face-off with China

It has been almost an entire day since 20 Indian soldiers were killed in what was termed a "violent face-off" with the Chinese army in the Ladakh region but Prime Minister Narendra Modi has so far remained mum on the development.

Scared maybe? That's what many of the Indians think with some even calling Modi "the weakest and the most incompetent PM".

Following the "loss of lives on the Indian side" at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), UK's Telegraph reported citing Indian army sources four soldiers were currently missing and another 32 "handed back after being captured".

But some of the Indians were relentless — and rightly so.

Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti spoke up about the issue, asking why the Indian leadership was suspiciously silent.

India "deserves to know why there is no talk of retaliation to avenge the death of three Indian army personnel", she wrote on Twitter.

Author and critic Kapil Komireddi said: "Notice how our prime minister, who so unblushingly absorbs credit for the triumphs of the Indian Army, vanishes from public view in times of tragedy.

It was "not leadership" from Modi, Komireddi added.

An Indian defence analyst said the face-off had left the disengagement canard of Ladakh "shattered" and "in tatters".

"This is what many of us had been saying. Lies, lies and damned lies," Man Amang Singh Chhina wrote.

Journalist Smita Sharma reminisced how "the last time bullets were exchanged between armies of India [and] China was in 1975 in Tulung La in Arunachal Pradesh."

Prominent journalist Rana Ayyub lambasted the Modi government saying "this is India at its weakest and most fragile ever."

Another media person, Ajai Shukla, was dumbfounded over the matter, noting that the Modi-led government "doesn’t feel obliged to explain what is happening".

Seemingly scared, Shukla said Indians "delude themselves that Chinese will walk away on their own".

Famed reporter Barkha Dutt, too, sounded frightened, saying how India was wrongly focused on Pakistan and that China was New Delhi's "most lethal and dangerous adversary".

"The faux romanticism built around not a single bullet fired has died permanently today I hope," she wrote.

Journalist Rohini Singh pointed out the Indian media's hypocrisy, which judged the Modi government's strength "by how much it can bully and silence it’s own citizens and not how well it can protect the nation’s interests".

"This is the weakest government in years," Singh wrote on Twitter.

A Congress party official said Modi had "failed", terming him as "the weakest and the most incompetent PM in the history of India".

Many others pointed out similar issues as well.