Unmarked McMahon Line causes troops to stray

Authorities downplay red paint incident on Indian side of border

Authoritative sources told Deccan Herald on Thursday that “the reported incidents” taking  place over the past couple of months “largely” relate to scribbling ‘China’ with red paint on the rocks or boulders on the Indian side of the border.

“The long-range ITBP patrol detected these scribbled rocks with cans of paint lying around. The patrol party washed them clean and reported back,” they said. Sources said since the LAC is not defined and the Chinese don’t recognise it, the patrol parties tend to stray on the borders which are looked upon as ‘incursions’.

“This is a matter of perception. Our long-range patrol also slips into such incursions with or without Chinese detection”, sources said. Asked about ‘incursions’ from the Chinese border along with Uttarakhand, sources affirmed that these incidents are also not new as they had taken pace “one and half months ago”.

The authorities who have recently returned from the parts of the border that were allegedly subjected to Chinese transgressions said both sides have fallen back on the set mechanism in place to defuse tensions.

Depending on the seriousness of the situation, flag meetings take place from time to time as a confidence building measure.

“This apart, Border Personal meetings (BPM) are arranged twice a year to sort out any misgivings on the border areas”, they said maintaining that there was no occasion for major concern let alone any border skirmishes. The reported Chinese transgressions on the Indian side of the border particularly at the Pangong Lake in Ladakh or Mount Gya and at Sikkim’s Finger point has recently been hotly debated in a section of media, evoking response from New Delhi and Beijing.

Dalai visit

The Sino-India border has also invited keen attention on account of the proposed November visit of Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, a major cause of tension over the decades-old border dispute between India and China. China doesn’t recognise  Arunachal Pradesh as a part of India and has opposed the Dalai Lama’s proposed visit to Tawang.

New Delhi, has, however, dismissed the protests saying the Tibetan leader was free to visit any part of the country. Given the backdrop of Sino-India border dispute and the steady development of infrastructure ( particularly of roads) by China on their side of the border has prompted India to speed up modernisation of infrastructure on its side.

Work is in progress on 10 border roads with work being completed on a total length of 196 km and 40 km of formation works and 5.40 km of surfacing works. Home Minister P Chidambaram recently admitted that Chinese side of the border was much more developed in terms of infrastructure than its Indian counterpart.