According to author Neville Maxwell, officers at the Indian Defense Ministry had expressed the concern that even Indian maps showed the entire Namkha Chu valley and Dhola Post-Thag La area as Chinese territory; they were told to ignore the maps. However, Nehru's directives to Defense Minister V.K. Krishna Menon were unclear, and the response, code named Operation LEGHORN, got underway only slowly. As the Chinese numbers were exaggerated to 600 instead of about 50 or 60, the 9 Punjab battalion, numbering 400 riflemen, was sent to Dhola.