Indi­an and Chi­nese troops appeared to exchange warn­ing shots along their dis­put­ed bor­der in Ladakh on Mon­day, the first time firearms have been used by sol­diers from the neigh­bour­ing super­pow­ers since 1975. While no casu­al­ties were report­ed, the clash is like­ly to fur­ther height­en ten­sions after the two sides were engaged in fatal hand-to-hand com­bat ear­li­er this year. Chi­na claimed on Tues­day that Indi­an sol­diers had opened fire to ward off a unit patrolling in a con­test­ed moun­tain­ous region. But India, offi­cial­ly, denied they fired shots, coun­ter­ing that Chi­na had used their guns to intim­i­date Indi­an forces. How­ev­er, Indi­an Army sources told The Tele­graph a Chi­nese patrol had advanced towards Indi­an ter­ri­to­ry on strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant moun­tain tops near Pan­gong Tso Lake. They claimed Indi­an units fired warn­ing shots in the air. Zhao Lijian, a Chi­nese Min­istry of For­eign Affairs spokesper­son, said: “It is the first time since 1975 that peace on the bor­der of the two coun­tries was bro­ken by gun­shots.” In a state­ment released on Tues­day, the Indi­an Gov­ern­ment con­demned the PLA for “bla­tant­ly vio­lat­ing agree­ments and car­ry­ing out aggres­sive maneu­vers” and reit­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to “pro­tect nation­al integri­ty and sov­er­eign­ty at all costs.” Years of frag­ile peace has set a con­ven­tion that states the two sides do not use guns to avoid esca­la­tions of vio­lence in remote terrain.