Arunachal Pradesh accuses China of incursions

ITANAGAR - The government in India’s frontier state of Arunachal Pradesh Wednesday accused China of making at least four incursions in the past one month and said the issue was brought to the notice of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

“Our chief minister Dorjee Khandu and I met the prime minister and the defence minister in New Delhi late last month and personally apprised about Chinese army entering Arunachal Pradesh and staying on Indian soil on at least four different occasions during the past one month,” Takam Sanjay, Congress Lok Sabha member from Arunachal Pradesh, told IANS.

He said the incursions took place in the Zemithang area in Tawang district of Arunachal Pradesh in August.

“The Chinese army travels on muleback and there were mule tracks noticed in the area,” Sanjay said.

“This is not the only instance of Chinese incursions as we know for sure they did intrude into the parts of Upper Subansiri district earlier this year too,” he added.

The mountainous state of Arunachal Pradesh shares a 1,030-km unfenced border with China. The McMahon Line, an imaginary border now known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC), separates the Sino-Indian border along Arunachal Pradesh.

“It is time the Indian government takes up the matter very seriously and heightens surveillance system in the border to avoid recurrence of Chinese intrusions,” Sanjay said.

India and China fought a bitter border war in 1962, with Chinese troops advancing deep into Arunachal Pradesh and inflicting heavy casualties on Indian troops.

The border dispute with China was inherited by India from the British colonial rulers, who hosted a 1914 conference with the Tibetan and Chinese governments that set the border in what is now Arunachal Pradesh.

China has never recognized the 1914 boundary, known as the McMahon Line, and claims 90,000 sq. km. — nearly all of Arunachal Pradesh. New Delhi accuses China of occupying 8,000 sq. km of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Arunachal Pradesh government has from time to time been warning New Delhi about the Chinese incursions.

Indian intelligence officials in 2007 reported Chinese-built mule tracks near the Kayela Pass in Arunachal Pradesh’s Dibang Valley district, bordering China’s Tibet region.

After the 1962 Sino-Indian War, tension flared again in 1986 with Indian and Chinese forces clashing in the Sumdorong Chu valley of Arunachal Pradesh.