Union minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju Friday said there had been reports of the Chinese army transgressing into Arunachal Pradesh on two occasions recently.
One incident was reported from Kibithu area in remote Anjaw district on July 22 and another at Thangsa in Tawang district in the same month, the minister told reporters after inaugurating the Pasighat Advance Landing Ground.
Rijiju said he was not describing these as acts of incursion, but transgression.
“We cannot term it as incursion, but transgression as the Chinese army just crossed the perceived area along the Line of Actual Control,” he said.
He said when the matter was reported from Kibithu by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, the centre verified it and found that it was only an act of transgression.
Asked about the government’s efforts to match China’s infrastructure development across the border, the union minister said the centre had already begun strengthening infrastructure across the border and the advance landing ground at Pasighat was a major step in this direction.
“We are not challenging or competing with any other country by strengthening our border infrastructure. We will have to build robust infrastructure to strengthen our defence and whatever we did is because India is an emerging power with capability. So IAF (Indian Air Force) should have operational bases in all the bordering states,” he said. (PTI)