Because it is not demarcated, leading to some confusion, parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju on Wednesday said people living on either side of the Line of Actual Control ( LAC ) in some areas of Arunachal Pradesh have differing perceptions of the boundary.
“It is not like they (China) came and captured our village. That is not the case. Our people believe that our land extends further ahead, while the villages situated on the China side, including Tibetan and local people, claim that their land extends deep inside here.
Because there is no demarcation, on certain land, they have cast an eye.
So, there is confusion,” he said in an interview to news agency IANS. The comments came days after the Ministry of External Affairs said that the state of border affairs has ramifications for overall India-China ties, adding that the two sides have agreed to use existing diplomatic and military mechanisms to “avoid misunderstanding and miscalculation” along the border.
“And the village that has been built at a location ahead of Longju, where there is a valley and a river confluence, is where the Chinese PLA constructed some structures and built a few buildings resembling a village. Right now, at our border point, our post is also present there. On August 11, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal made the remarks while responding to a question on the military situation between India and China in the Arunachal Pradesh sector and whether recent reports of a standoff had been taken up diplomatically with China. That land was occupied in 1959…Then, in 1962, they further consolidated and established their presence at that place. Travel and movement between China and India there have remained closed since after 1962.
The Army and the ITBP have significantly strengthened their patrolling compared to earlier, Rijiju said. However, on the high ridges at the top, Chinese military activity has certainly increased,” he said. There is no clarity on the current status of the standoff in the Arunachal Pradesh sector, though people familiar with the situation earlier said on condition of anonymity that the problems first emerged in the remote Taksin area of Upper Subansiri district in early July. There were a few face-offs between Indian and Chinese troops in July and matters took a more serious turn towards the end of last month, the people said.
