India on Friday asserted that Chinese intrusion into Indian territory has come down because of the increased talks between two sides. Addressing a Press conference after witnessing maiden flight of HAl built indigenous trainer aircraft HTT 40, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said intrusion from Chinese side has come down.
He said “I think it is an annual affair now. The transgression area is an issue. But the situation has come down when compared to past.” The Minister said the talks between both the sides have increased and the commander-level interaction on border is helping to resolve the issue. “We’ve pushed them back every time they came in,” the Minister said.
Calling incidents of Chinese incursion on the Indian side of the border as “transgression”, Parrikar said “these things happen because of some historical problem between countries on perceived line of Control.”
He said, “Whenever they have transgressed we have either stopped them and asked them to go back or raise the issue with them. But I can tell you the overall transgression that means violation of our line of control perception has reduced a lot compared to earlier.” “This is mainly because we have increased the number of interaction points at the border at senior and local commander level,” the Defence Minister said.
“They interact with each other to clarify and the issues are sorted out. So the number has come down,” he added. Parikkar said even in the latest incident, we “pushed” them back and had a meeting with them and clarified the issue. “It is almost an annual ritual that happens, but we push them back every time such attempts are made,” he added.
In another incident of Chinese incursion, about 250 China’s Peoples liberation Army soldiers had entered Arunachal Pradesh’s east district of Kameng last week. The “temporary transgression” by the Chinese patrolling party took place in Yangste, East Kameng district on June 9. However the Chinese soldiers went back within hours.
On terror strikes in the Kashmir valley he said in the last two days alone, the security forces have neutralised two infiltration bids. “The ratio is 1:4.4 (for every soldier martyred more than 4 terrorists are killed). But I do not want even one jawan to die and our efforts are in that direction. The issue escalates during winter season,” he added.
Defence Minister said the increased number of terrorist encounters show that the country’s intelligence has “increased” and counter terrorist network is “tightening”. “More encounters means — we are nutralising more, our intelligence has increased, our counter terrorist network is now tightening up,” added.
On proposed Joint Commands, Parrikar said that he was awaiting a report from a committee headed by a lieutenant General rank officer. “The question is whether we need so many commands. India has 17 commands and China has only six. We will take a call after the report is submitted,” he added.
On Rafale deal, Parrikar said it is proceeding on the expected lines. He said the Tejas Squadron formation will be held in July with three aircraft set to be inducted. On DTTI (Defence Technology and Trade Initiative), the minister said talks are moving in the right direction with aircraft carrier technologies being discussed currently.
He declared there was no change in Aero India 2017 venue and said Bengaluru will host the Aero India-2017 .eom/blr