Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. (File photo)
It is time now for Centre to stand up to the repeated incursions into our territory, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh Tuesday said asserting that every sign of weakness on the part of India makes the Chinese reaction more belligerent.
“Our soldiers are not fair game that every few days officers and men should be killed or injured defending our borders,” Amarinder said.
He was reacting to a violent confrontation with Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh’s Galwan Valley on Monday which an army officer and two soldiers were killed.
“It is time now for India to stand up to these repeated incursions that are a blatant violation of our territorial rights and put a stop to such attacks on our territorial integrity,” Amarinder said.
“The happening in the Galwan Valley is a continuation of violations by China. It is time now that the country stands up to these incursions,” the Punjab CM said adding it is time now for the government of India to take some “stringent” measures.
While it is important to defuse tensions at the border and India is not in favour of war, but the country cannot afford to show weakness at this time and needs to take a strong stand to deter the Chinese from any further intrusions and attacks on India’s territories and men, he added.
Even after brutally beating the Indian Army commanding officer and two soldiers to death, Beijing is feigning innocence, and trying to put the blame on India, accusing it of provoking the conflict through ‘unilateral actions,’ the chief minister said. Such a reaction on the part of China was typical of its duplicity, he said, adding that the escalation of tensions in the Ladakh sector of the Indo-China border were the direct consequence of the incursions by Chinese troops into Indian territory.
The Chinese actions were in direct violation of all the treaties signed between the two countries and a brazen assault on Indian integrity. He urged the Union government to take suitable steps to send out a strong message that it would not take such attacks lying down.
Referring to developments on the Indo-Pak and Indo-Nepal borders in recent weeks, the chief minister said the country is clearly surrounded by forces seeking to destabilize its peace by taking advantage of the COVID-19 crisis. “Let them be warned that India will not compromise on national security at any cost, and is capable of combating external challenges even as it continues to battle the pandemic internally,” he asserted.
Paying tributes to the soldiers who had lost their lives in the Galwan Valley violence, Singh said the whole nation today stands with the Indian Army in their hour of grief.