Neither has anyone intruded into Indian territory nor has anyone taken over any post, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday at an all-party meeting called to discuss the clash with Chinese forces in Ladakh in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed this week.
In his closing remarks at an all-party meeting on the face-off between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, Modi said the whole country is hurt and angry at what the Chinese have done.
India wants peace and friendship, but its sovereignty is supreme, he said.
Indian forces are doing what they have to do to protect the country, whether it is in terms of deployment, action or counter-action, Modi told political leaders.
"Our patrolling capacity has increased due to newly built infrastructure, especially along LAC," he said.
In the first such violent clash in nearly half a century, Indian soldiers were assaulted with iron rods and clubs wrapped in barbed wire laced with nails in the fight with the Chinese in Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on Monday, close to the Line of Actual Control. Many were thrown off a steep ridge and some of the soldiers fell into the river Galwan.
PM Narendra Modi talks with Congress Interim President Sonia Gandhi, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, Telangana CM K. Chandrashekar Rao, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee during an all party meeting to discuss the situation along the India-China border in New Delhi. (PTI)
The dramatic escalation in hostilities came after weeks of reports of the Chinese ramping up their military presence in the area and intruding into Indian territory throughout which the government maintained there was no cause for concern.
Speaking out two days after the encounter with Chinese forces, PM Modi had said he wanted to assure the nation that the sacrifice of Indian soldiers would not go in vain and India is capable of giving a fitting reply if provoked.