With India demanding third flag meeting with China over the incursion issue at Depsang valley in ladakh of Jammu and Kashmir, army and Indo-Tibet Border Police (ITBP) has stepped up their vigilance on the Indo-China border of Himachal Pradesh.
Himachal Pradesh's two districts - Kinnaur and lahaul Spiti have borders with China spread over 216 km and the borders are mostly manned by ITBP. lahaul Spiti has 84 km border with China while the rest falls under the Kinnaur district.
With no signs of improvement in the impasse over incursions that took place on April 15, alert has now been sounded on the border to maintain strict vigilance over any movement on the other side of the border.
Till date, no manual incursions have been reported.
However, considering the sensitivity of the issue, alert has been asked to be maintained. Chances of manual incursions are also considered low in the area due to difficult terrain and climatic conditions, but air incursions have repeatedly taken place with one such incident occurring last August when two Chinese helicopters entered the Indian airspace over Kinnaur.
The matter had reached Delhi at that time and the then Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal had taken up the matter with the Prime Minister as well as the Defense Minister for strengthening up of the infrastructure as China has in past couple of years resorted to mass scale infrastructural build up on the other side of the border.
Some senior district administration officials of both Kinnaur and lahaul Spiti districts said that some Army commanders have been repeatedly visiting the area since few days, to take stock of the situation.
Meanwhile, patrolling in the areas has been intensified on strategic locations and manual intelligence network is being put on alert. Army officials also maintained that alert has been put in place and Western Command situated in Chandigarh is keeping a close tab upon developments on ladakh incursions issue and the border of Himachal Pradesh with China.
However, no formal troop mobilisation or chopper reconnaissance operation has been witnessed in the area. Officials said that depending on the situation, steps will be taken. State Home Secretary Prem Kumar said that till now they have not received any communication from the Central Government and the State is bound to act according to Centre's direction.
The 216 km long border has Shipki la mountain pass at Kinnaur which has been one of the three posts used for small scale trading between the traders of Himachal Pradesh and China.
BJP, on other hand blamed the Central Government for the incursion issue. BJP holds the opinion that it is due to the careless attitude of the Central Government that such a situation had arisen. "Central Government had failed to provide adequate security to the nation and repeated incursion attempts have been made in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir, but no concrete action has been taken," said party spokesperson Ganesh Dutt.