India has labelled a report China turned part of the Kashmir region into an "oven" with "microwave weapons" fake news.
UK newspaper The Times reported this week on a claim from Jim Canrong, a professor of international relations at Beijing's Renmin University, that China used a "microwave weapon" in August during its attempt to conquer land in Ladakh, the subject of dispute between India and China.
Canrong says that Chinese forces turned the land into a "microwave oven" to force Indian troops to retreat and to avoid a gunfight.
"Within 15 minutes of the weapons being deployed, those occupying the hilltops all began to vomit. They couldn't stand up, so they fled. This was how we retook the ground," he told students at a lecture, according to reports.
"We didn't publicise it because we solved the problem beautifully. They [India] didn't publicise it either because they lost so miserably."
However, the Indian Army says the claim is false, tweeting that media articles on employment of microwave weapons in eastern Ladakh "are baseless".
The so-called "microwave weapons" are said to be direct-energy weapons that heat the water in a human's skin to cause pain, the Indian Express says.
Tensions on the disputed land heated up this year, with several soldiers on both sides injured during clashes.
The Line of Actual Control in the region near the contested Himalayan border was established in 1962, after China won the Sino-Indian war and established a clear boundary in the mountain range, which has a number of strategic advantages.
