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GUWAHATI: India has moved troops to its eastern stretch of the border with China since clashes between nuclear-armed rivals broke out on the western part of its border in the Himalayas in June, a government official said Wednesday (Sept. 2) .
The June clash in the Ladakh region, on the western part of its border, was the worst violence among Asian giants in decades and there has been little sign of a reduction in tension, with more military action in the past week.
The movement of troops into the eastern Anjaw district of Arunachal Pradesh state, which China also claims, raises the possibility of a broader confrontation, although both the government and Indian military officials ruled out any imminent confrontation.
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“The military presence has surely increased, but when it comes to incursions, there are no verified reports as such,” said Ayushi Sudan, Anjaw’s top official, adding that several battalions of the Indian army were stationed there.
“There has been an increase in troop deployment since the Galwan incident, and even before that we had started,” he told Reuters by phone, referring to the June clash in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed.
Arunachal Pradesh, which China calls South Tibet, was at the center of a large-scale border war between India and China in 1962, and security analysts have warned it could become a flash point again.
But a spokesman for the Indian army, Lt. Col. Harsh Wardhan Pande, said there was no cause for concern and that the troops arriving in the area were part of a regular rotation.
“It’s basically about units changing. That’s happening as usual, not much,” Pande told Reuters from near Guwahati, the largest city in northeast India.
“As of now, there is nothing to worry about on that front.”
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But Tapir Gao, a member of the Arunachal parliament, told Reuters that Chinese troops had been regularly crossing into Indian territory.
“It’s a regular phenomenon, it’s nothing new,” he said, identifying the Walong and Chaglagam areas in Anjaw as the most vulnerable.
In the 1962 war, India says its outnumbered forces “blocked the advance of the Chinese invaders” in Walong, and the area of mountains, meadows, and rapid rivers is now a government focus for settlement and road construction.
“What we are trying to do is create more possibilities and opportunities for the villagers,” Sudan said, referring to plans for groups of villages in the disputed area.
“It is an impulse to resettle people.”
