Union Minister Kiren Rijiju has called the latest claims of Chinese incursion in Arunachal Pradesh “incorrect”. “It is wrong to claim that China has entered 60 km inside India,” the Parliamentary Affairs Minister told news agency IANS in an interview.
The minister’s remarks come amid reports of an alleged Chinese incursion in the Upper Subansiri district in Arunachal, with locals claiming that the Chinese troops had crossed the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and entered areas in the Taksing circle.
The core issue, according to Rijiju, is that China had begun road construction in the border areas earlier.
“At that time, the Congress was in power. That changed after 2014, Rijiju added, with the government accelerating border infrastructure development. He pointed out that the current government had built roads in remote border areas where no such development had taken place since 1947.
Then defence minister AK Antony had said in Parliament that India’s policy was not to build infrastructure along the border. China, meanwhile, continued building roads and infrastructure,” he further said. The Chinese took advantage of this delay, according to him. The villagers on the Indian side claim that their territory extends further, while those on the Chinese side claim their land extends deep inside here, Rijiju said, adding that the government takes the concerns of the villagers seriously.
“When we failed to build a road, but China succeeded, the Chinese army occupied high-altitude areas and built border infrastructure. We are now responding by developing our own infrastructure…It is not as if they have captured one of our villages. Because the boundary there is not demarcated,” the minister added, they have set up camp on certain tracts of land.
