Claims by civil society groups and media in India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh that Chinese troops have been crossing into Indian territory, which the Narendra Modi government has repeatedly denied, were confirmed by a top Indian official last week.

At an event in Alwar, Rajasthan, on October 22, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) Director General Shatrujeet Kapur said that face-offs are happening between Indian and Chinese forces “at several locations in Arunachal and it still continues.”

Kapur’s remarks on Thursday about the face-offs are hardly a revelation. Civil society groups and media in the northeast Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which borders China, have been drawing attention to the fragile, even alarming situation along the frontier since June-July.

In a letter dated June 26, 2026, to the deputy commissioner of Upper Subansiri, the Nah Welfare Society (NWS) said that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had occupied Indian territory in and around Taksing, including Oying in the Asaphila area, Paniar in the Chujarta area, Marpan in Marnafe, Portrang Lake, and Tingdingtang. In addition to establishing a military camp in the area, the PLA has also built roads, bridges, and military camps in several locations traditionally used by local communities for grazing, hunting, and collecting forest produce. A Taksing-based tribal organization, the NWS expressed “deep grief” over the PLA’s gradual occupation of ancestral lands, which it said, has intensified since 2020.

Soon after the contents of the NWS’ memorandum became public, the Indian Army categorically dismissed the “reports” as “incorrect and without any basis.” Then came videos claiming the PLA had advanced 50-60 km into Indian territory. The Indian government’s Press Information Bureau Fact Check unit dismissed the reports as ” fake;” the videos did not pertain to the India-China border, it said. This was followed by reports and videos of “skirmishes” in the Taksing Circle on July 25-26. The “confrontation” reportedly “continued for nearly a week before the situation was brought under control following intervention by senior commanders from both sides.” However, Arunachal Pradesh’s Home Minister Mama Natung dismissed the reports of Chinese encroachment as “just rumors.”

Now, for the first time, there is official confirmation of confrontations at multiple locations along the India-China border in Arunachal Pradesh. And this confirmation has come from the head of the ITBP, the force that guards the India-China border.

The entire India-China border is disputed. The two countries not only have differing perceptions of where the Line of Actual Control, the de facto border, runs, but they also claim swathes of territory under the other’s control. China claims 90,000 sq km of territory that roughly coincides with Arunachal Pradesh. India claims 38,000 sq km of territory in Aksai Chin that China occupied during the 1962 border war, and another 5,300 sq km in the Shaksgam Valley of Jammu and Kashmir that Pakistan occupied in 1947-48 and gifted to China in 1963.

Besides the war in 1962, which China won, the two sides have engaged in skirmishes and standoffs several times over the decades, including at Samdurong Chu in Arunachal in 1986-87, at the Doklam trijunction of China, India and Bhutan in 2017, and at Galwan in Ladakh in June 2020, which resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers.

Interestingly, China’s interest in Arunachal Pradesh has waxed and waned over time. After occupying Arunachal, then known as the North East Frontier Agency, for several weeks during the 1962 war, the PLA pulled out. Indeed, it did not seem interested in pressing any claims here, and under a swap proposal, was willing to give up claims in the eastern sector, in return for India accepting its control over Aksai Chin in the western sector.

It was only from the mid-1980s that China began reasserting claims over what it calls “Zangnan” or “South Tibet,” at bilateral talks, through military intrusions, by pushing back Indian patrol teams, objecting to visits of Indian leaders to Arunachal Pradesh, refusing to issue visas to Indian passport holders from the state on the argument that they are not Indian, and announcing “standardized” or Chinese names for places and geographical features in the state. According to a 2025 Pentagon report, Arunachal Pradesh is among China’s “core interests.”

In recent months, India and China have engaged in a slew of talks. On August 6, the 36th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs was held in New Delhi. Then on August 26, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval met with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the 25th round of Special Representatives’ talks on the Boundary Question in Beijing. On September 6, the Indian Army and the PLA held their first Corps Commander-level meeting in the Eastern Sector at the Vacha-Damai Border Personnel Meeting Point in Arunachal Pradesh.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping shook hands and chatted at the SCO Summit at Bishkek on August 31, and held a meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Delhi on September 12.

If the India-China face-offs are continuing, as the ITBP Director General Kapur said they are, it is clear the talks have had little impact in deterring the PLA.

One obvious reason is that Prime Minister Modi’s China strategy is guided more by his interest in beefing up his image among his supporters than taking a strong position against China. His government has repeatedly denied PLA encroachment into Indian controlled territory. “Neither is anyone inside our territory nor is any of our post captured,” Modi grandly declared at an all-party meeting days after the Galwan clashes. The recent spate of denials by the government over PLA’s encroachments in Arunachal is part of the same short-sighted vision. It has weakened India’s hand at talks.

Even more baffling is the Modi government’s withdrawal of ITBP companies from the border. Since June-July, massive anti-government protests in the capital have rattled the Modi government. In response, it has pulled out ITBP personnel from the India-China border and redeployed them in Delhi at a time when the border situation is volatile. Clearly, using the ITBP to crush unarmed civilian protestors in Delhi is more important to Modi than using the force to push back PLA advances at the Arunachal border.

Under the BJP government, almost every Indian state/union territory bordering China is roiled in unrest. Arunachal’s civil society has strongly opposed a mega dam being constructed in the state’s Upper Siang district. The state’s inept handling of public concerns raised over displacement, environmental impact, and loss of livelihoods, and its use of force to deal with protests have resulted in the escalation of the conflict. On October 23, Upper Siang witnessed unprecedented scenes of violence.

Already, Arunachalis are upset with the government for not acting on their apprehensions over PLA encroachment into their traditional lands and hunting grounds. Delhi’s use of the iron fist now to put down their protests will fuel further anger. This will only add to India’s troubles in a sensitive border region.