India will not accept any kind of intrusion by China along the border and will defend its territory, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said on Monday.
“These incidents are happening. But we are very, very clear this time that we will not accept any kind of their (Chinese) intrusion into our territory and we will not concede. This is something we are not going to accept,” he said on the sidelines of a function here.
Rijiju insisted that India wants peaceful atmosphere and tranquillity along the border and there is nothing aggressive about its stand.
He said some of the areas along the Sino-Indian border are not very well demarcated and Indian forces “go to the very point and Chinese PLA also come and sometime cross the area which India sees as its territory.”
“But we are very firm about our position and we should not let our territory or our perceived territory to go into the hands of the other side. We are very clear on that. This should not be construed as we are being too aggressive or trying to destabilise the situation along the border,” he said.
The Minister, at the same time, said security forces would not carry out any kind of “misadventure” or get into confrontation which will lead to unnecessary strains in ties or escalate tension in the border areas.
“But if they carry out any construction activity in our territory or in our perceived territory, then we have to stop them. That is why this tension goes along. We are very particular about our concerns and we stand by that,” he said.
The Indo-Tibetan Border Police guards the Sino-Indian border. The ITBP comes under the Home Ministry.
Tension in the area erupted two weeks back when some Chinese workers, who were constructing a road on their side, crossed into the Indian side and also claimed that they had orders to build a road up to Tible, 5 km deep inside Indian territory.
Chinese troops had pitched their tents in Chumar and their helicopters were seen dropping food packets for soldiers.
