Tamang(Arunachal Pradesh),India April 5 – Rejecting China’s claim over certain parts of Arunachal Pradesh, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil today said that the people of the country had nothing to fear as far as encroachments by neighbouring countries was concerned.
Talking to mediapersons while reviewing the security situation in the Tawang area of Arunachal Pradesh, Patil said that the country’s security forces were capable of protecting the nation’s frontiers.
To a question about China’s latest claim over certain areas in Arunachal, the Home Minister said: “Leave such issues to the Government of India to decide. We must focus more on friendship with China. And, our security forces are strong enough to take care of all these things.”
Patil also met the defence personnel deployed in the area as a confidence-boosting measure.
China’s contested Himalayan border with India remains the world’s biggest territorial dispute. British imperialists poorly defined long sectors of the mountainous frontier between India and Tibet in the eastern Himalayans, and northern Kashmir, bequeathing India and China a permanent border dispute.
India claims the Chinese-held strategic region of Aksai Chin, and challenges China’s rule over Tibet. China contests Indian annexation of parts of Arunachal Pradesh, Bhutan, Sikkim, Ladakh (Little Tibet), and two-thirds of Kashmir.
