Indian Army rebuttal calls Arunachal encroachment reports incorrect and baseless

An Indian Army rebuttal has rejected a fresh round of media reports alleging recent Chinese PLA encroachment and the setting up of camps in Arunachal Pradesh, describing the claims as incorrect and without any basis. The response from the Indian Army followed several outlets carrying allegations that began with a memorandum from a community body in Upper Subansiri district.

"We have seen some media reports alleging recent encroachment by Chinese PLA and setting up of camps in Arunachal Pradesh. These reports are incorrect and without any basis," the Indian Army said.

What the Indian Army rebuttal was responding to

The reports trace back to the Nah Welfare Society, a registered organisation based in Taksing, which wrote to the Deputy Commissioner of Upper Subansiri, Gambo Tasso. In the letter, NWS president Keru Chader alleged that the People's Liberation Army had occupied land traditionally used by the Nah community and had built roads, bridges and military camps over the past five years.

The memorandum named five locations. Oying in the Asaphila area, Paniar in Chujarta, Marpan in Marnafe, Potrang Lake and Tindingtang. The society said these areas, close to the Taksing headquarters, had served the community for generations for grazing, hunting and collecting forest produce, and that some carried religious value tied to the Tsari pilgrimage circuit. Chader wrote that the community was losing land inch by inch and that the pace of Chinese activity in the sector was alarming, placing the steepest change after 2020.

Faith in the force guarding the frontier

One line in the memorandum sits oddly against the headlines it produced. The society set down its faith in the Indian Army in plain terms, writing that the community does not doubt the force and that the Army has guarded the area for many years. The letter was an appeal for stronger administrative action and verification, not a charge against the troops holding the border.

That distinction tends to vanish once allegations reach national media stripped of their context. Official channels have spent the month correcting versions of events that travelled faster than the facts, as seen when the Defence Ministry moved to dispute social media claims around the Operation Sindoor casualty address.

An undemarcated line and a recurring claim

The Taksing sector lies along one of the least accessible stretches of the India China frontier. Taksing village sits roughly seven kilometres from the international border, in terrain where the Line of Actual Control is not marked on the ground and where Indian and Chinese readings of the line do not always agree.

Government figures have addressed exactly this before. Overlapping patrolling in undemarcated pockets is not the same as encroachment, Union minister Kiren Rijiju said in 2024 while dismissing similar claims, adding that China is not permitted to raise permanent structures on the Indian side. The point is narrow and it holds. A patrol track or a painted rock does not move a boundary.

Such allegations have surfaced and been answered before. In 2024 a students' body claimed Chinese camps deep inside Anjaw district. An Army source refuted the account within a day and said the situation along the border was normal. The Taksing case has now drawn the same official line.

Vigilance on the ground

The rebuttal lands against a record of visible activity by Indian forces in the same theatre. An Army and ITBP joint exercise in Arunachal Pradesh wrapped up in late June, with both forces drilling high-altitude border procedures. The Indo Tibetan Border Police mans the forward posts along this frontier, backed by the Army in depth.

Border security has stayed a stated priority at the political level too, with the Home Ministry pushing a zero-tolerance line on encroachment and infiltration in reviews this year. For the units posted in Upper Subansiri the work is routine and continuous, carried out in weather and at altitudes that few of the outlets running the encroachment story will ever see.

The Indian Army has called the reports of fresh Chinese camps incorrect and without basis. With the state government and the district administration yet to respond, that is the only official assessment on record for the Taksing claims.