New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday praised the Indian Army for protecting the locals from Chinese incursions in Arunachal Pradesh but noted the central government needs to do more to secure the border state.
“We are proud of the Indian Army which is protecting the borders and has not allowed the Chinese to take even an inch of our land. But the Central government needs to do more to secure Arunachal Pradesh from Chinese incursions,” Arunachal Pradesh Congress working president Bosiram Siram told ETV Bharat.
“I think the central government is not doing enough to address this problem. Therefore, such incidents take place. Successive governments have been giving attention to the incursions. The BJP government is also trying here and there but they are failing in some mechanisms. These mechanisms are not adequate to deal with the problem. We have to go beyond the present tactics and evolve a new strategy to curb such incursions,” he said.
The reaction came days after a fresh incursion took place in the Tawang area on December 9 during which the Indian Army soldiers pushed back the Chinese People’s Liberation Army after hand-to-hand combat. According to the Congress leader, such border incursions by the Chinese PLA and kidnapping of the locals by them were regular features in Arunachal Pradesh and would not end till the problem was addressed in a holistic way.
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“The December 9 incident was not new. The PLA agenda is to harass the locals in the border areas. They use it as a tactic. Last year, two local boys had been abducted by the PLA. They were released after the Indian Army intervened in the matter. The common people are very annoyed over such incidents.
They face troubles when they go near the border areas to hunt for food and fear being kidnapped by the PLA. But the locals are alert and keep a watch on signs of any Chinese intrusion inside the Indian territory,” said Siram.
“It is routine for the PLA to create problems in Arunachal Pradesh. Such incidents are not isolated and will keep taking place in the future also,” he said. The Congress leader said the party keeps sending delegations to the border areas to highlight the issue but it can only flag the problem.
“Time and again we take delegations to the border areas. I visited Tawang a week ago. It is under a thick layer of ice. The Chinese took advantage of the extreme cold to violate the border near Tawang,” said Siram. “Tawang is the area from where the Dalai Lama entered India in 1959,” he said.
Noting that Arunachal Pradesh is a peculiar state as it shares borders with three countries -- China, Bhutan and Myanmar -- Siram said only the Chinese PLA was using such pressure tactics to harass the locals. "They use such tactics to claim Arunachal Pradesh. The people of Arunachal Pradesh have never been under Chinese occupation and the state will always remain a part and parcel of India,” he said.
