Ladakh Lieutenant Governor B D Mishra asserted on Monday that not even one square inch of Indian land has been occupied by China and that the armed forces are prepared to give "a bloody nose" to anyone engaging in any misadventure. His assertion came days after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's remark on China occupying a large chunk of land in Ladakh.
Without mentioning any party leader, Lieutenant Governor B D Mishra said, "I won't comment on anybody's statement. But I will say what is fact because I have seen myself on the ground that not even one square inch of land which the Chinese have occupied." "Whatsoever happened in 1962 that is immaterial. But today we are in occupation of our land to the last inch," he further said.
Mishra, a retired Brigadier, was in Jammu to attend the three-day North Tech Symposium being organised by the Army. Responding to reporters' queries on the sidelines of the event, he said, "Their (army troops) intent is to defend every square inch of land. Nobody can dare to come towards India with any design to have a foothold here. I think all the credit goes to great leadership under Prime Minister Narendra Modi."
What Rahul Gandhi said
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who has been critical of the central government's policy on China, had earlier raked up the China border issue claiming that the PLA has occupied India's land. His comments came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
"I visited the whole of Ladakh on my motorcycle over the past week... Ladakh is a strategic place and when I was at Pangong lake, one thing was clear that China had taken over thousands of kilometers of Indian land. Unfortunately, the prime minister...made a statement that not an inch of our land was taken away which is absolutely false," he said at a public meeting in Kargil on the last day of his nine-day tour of Ladakh.
