An Indian politician has urged his nation to “take our land back” from China amid their ongoing bloody dispute with Pakistan. Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, alleged that China is encroaching on 4,000sq/km of Indian territory.
The territory of Aksai Chin, in the northeast of Ladakh, remains a point of contention between China and India. Their border dispute is ongoing, as China remains India’s biggest source of goods and its largest supplier of industrial products. In 2023 and 2024, China and India were involved in a joint commerce of $118.4bn ££88bn).
Rahul Gandhi has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take the land back from China. He claimed that the Prime Minister and President Droupadi Murmu wrote a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
He said: “There should be status quo, and we should get our land back. It is a known fact that China is sitting on 4,000 sq km of our territory. I was shocked to see, sometime back, that our Foreign Secretary was cutting a cake with the Chinese Ambassador.”
He added: “We are not against normalcy but normalcy needs to be preceded by status quo. Our land should be restored to us. It has also come to my knowledge that the Prime Minister and President have written to the Chinese. We are finding this out not from our people but from the Chinese ambassador.”
It comes as India and Pakistan remain locked in a land dispute centring on the Kashmir region. The mountainous area is claimed by both nations that have fought two wars over it in the past
Militants killed 26 people, including 25 Indians and one Nepali national, in an attack in the resort town of Pahalgam on April 22. It was the first major attack on civilians since India revoked Article 370 in 2019, which gave Kashmir semi-autonomous status.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has since said India would hunt the suspects “till the ends of the Earth” amid widespread public anger. While it is unclear who was behind the attack in Pahalgam, Indian police claim two of the attackers were Pakistani nationals, which Islamabad denies.
India and Pakistan have since enforced measures against each other, including closing border crossings and suspending visas. India also launched a series of strikes on sites in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
The strikes, named Operation Sindoor, were aimed at holding those responsible for the attack two weeks ago “accountable”. However, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the “heinous act of aggression will not go unpunished.”
Pakistan’s military has since claimed it shot down five Indian aircraft and a drone. Meanwhile, India said at least 10 people were killed and 32 injured by shelling on its side of the Kashmir border.
Delhi said it targeted “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Pakistan. It added that Pakistan military facilities had not been targeted.