Arunachal face-offs: official lines, opposition claims and fakes since the ITBP chief's remark

Updated October 30. The text below is as of 13:37 IST on October 27. Since then the chief minister's line has moved: on October 29 Pema Khandu said "transgression has happened" and called the situation "quite normal now", where on October 27 he was reported as not believing an incursion was taking place (The Indian Express, The New Indian Express, The Times of India). The Times of India reports that the Army's fact-check account has debunked three posts: the deepfake of Lt Gen Girish Kalia, a TikTok video of an exercise in Kazakhstan and a manipulated video attributed to a former Army Commander (The Times of India). The Hindu reports that Kapur retires on October 31 and Sanjay Singhal takes additional charge of the ITBP (The Hindu). The New Indian Express reports that Army chief Gen Dhiraj Seth reviewed middle-sector preparedness in Uttarakhand as face-offs continue in Arunachal (The New Indian Express). The reports we read since October 27 give no details of the locations.

Five days after the director general of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Shatrujeet Kapur, told a ceremony in Alwar that "face-offs" were continuing "at several locations in Arunachal", the government has not published details of where they are or who is involved, and the reports since then mix official lines, opposition claims and several videos that the Army and fact-checkers have shown to be fake or old. Beijing said on Monday it has "strictly abided by" its agreements with India and conducts "routine patrols". On Monday the Arunachal Pradesh Congress chief alleged that Chinese troops are 40 to 50 km inside Upper Subansiri district; the state's chief minister said he does not believe an incursion is taking place.

This piece is as of 13:37 IST on Tuesday, October 27, and follows our earlier report on the ITBP chief's remarks. It sets out what officials have said and what has been alleged, and which claims have been shown to be false.

What Kapur said

Speaking on Thursday, October 22, at the ITBP's annual Himveer Samman Samaroh at its Central Training College in Alwar, Rajasthan, Kapur said: "In the past few days, a situation arose where face-offs happened at several locations in Arunachal, and it still continues," The Hindu and The Indian Express report. He praised the force's newly raised Shaurya commandos for an "exemplary role". The Indian Express notes that he did not name China, and Hindustan Times says he did not explicitly name who the face-off was with. The Hindu calls it the first official confirmation of the scale of tensions on the north-eastern border since July. Most of the speech was about drones, underground shelters and modernisation, and The Economic Times says the Shaurya team showed its skills during the "ongoing" face-off with Chinese troops "at multiple places in Arunachal Pradesh". Kapur is due to retire on October 31, The Hindu reports.

Hindustan Times reports that the ITBP released a video of the remarks on social media late on Thursday and later deleted it, and that it had asked the force for comment. The reports read for this piece do not carry an ITBP explanation.

Note on spelling: outlets spell the director general's surname both Kapur and Kapoor.

What the government and Beijing have said

• Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Friday, October 23: "Insofar as the specifics are concerned, I would refer you to the Ministry of Defence. As we have noted in the past, the situation in the India-China border areas gets disturbed from time to time when Chinese forces diverge from established patrolling patterns," spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, adding that both sides use diplomatic and military mechanisms to avoid "misunderstanding and miscalculation". The words are quoted in ABP Live and Republic World.
• Unnamed government sources: the Indian news agency IANS reports that "according to sources", Kapur's comments were "taken out of context" and "made in the context of routine operational preparedness and force deployment along the frontier and were not linked to any specific incident". IDRW, which carries the report, adds the view of Lt Gen Sanjay Kulkarni (retired), who told IANS he did not agree with the director general's statement and that "whatever is happening is a normal patrolling perception". The sources are not named, and Kapur's words as quoted in the speech reports above refer to face-offs "at several locations".
• China, Monday, October 26: Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said, "China has consistently and strictly abided by the relevant agreements and important understandings between the two countries, conducting routine patrols and management activities in the border areas to safeguard territorial sovereignty and border stability. China and India remain in communication through diplomatic and military channels", and hoped India would "take concrete steps to maintain peace and tranquillity", according to Republic World and The Sentinel. He did not describe any face-off.
• Defence Ministry: none of the reports read carries a statement from the Ministry of Defence, to which the MEA referred questions.

What is reported about the ground

• The Taksing stand-off: government sources told The Hindu that since late July India and China have been engaged in a stand-off at Asaphila near Taksing in Upper Subansiri district, and that Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) personnel pitched tents at an elevation 6 to 7 km within India's perception of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), near the Maja company operating base. The source said Indian and Chinese patrols came face to face in July and the PLA returned in larger numbers days later. The Free Press Journal repeats this, adding that no violence or casualties have been reported.
• Talks: The Hindu lists the 36th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on August 6, the 25th round of Special Representatives talks in Beijing on August 26, and the first Corps Commander-level meeting in the eastern sector on September 6 at the Vacha-Damai Border Personnel Meeting Point. Indian Express, which says it first reported the Corps Commander talks, cites sources saying Indian troops remain deployed in large numbers to prevent escalation.
• Earlier denials: in June the Indian Army called a claim by a local group, the Nah Welfare Society, that the PLA had expanded its presence near Taksing "incorrect and without any basis". In August, Union minister Kiren Rijiju rejected a claim of a 60-km Chinese intrusion while acknowledging increased Chinese military activity on high ridges. His August video has resurfaced, The Free Press Journal reports.

The political reaction

• Congress: Jairam Ramesh wrote on X that "India is paying the price for the infamous clean chit given to China by the Prime Minister on 19 June 2020", and accused the government of silence, Pratidin Time and Hindustan Times report. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge wrote "Enough clean chits to China. PM Modi must come clean before India!", and Pawan Khera demanded a statement in Parliament by the Prime Minister, Defence Minister and Home Minister and a confidential all-party briefing, Organiser reports. Organiser, which is critical of the Congress here, argues the party has said little against China itself; that is its editorial view.
• BJP: Hindustan Times reports that BJP functionaries have accused the Congress of politicising national security and said Jawaharlal Nehru ceded ground to China. The government has in the past rejected the Congress's allegations, the paper adds.
• Shiv Sena (UBT): its mouthpiece Saamana said in an editorial, as Tripura Chronicle reports it, that Kapur had revealed Chinese troops crossed the border and penetrated 6 to 7 km at Asaphila, that armed clashes had been going on for four months, and that the government was concealing facts. Those statements go beyond the words attributed to Kapur in the speech reports above, which mention face-offs but no depth of intrusion and no armed clashes; the 6 to 7 km figure in the reports above comes from government sources speaking to The Hindu. The editorial's claims are the party's.
• Dushyant Chautala: the former Haryana deputy chief minister called Kapur's remarks "demoralizing" and strategically harmful and asked Home Minister Amit Shah to act against officials making such statements, The Times of India reports in a report from Hisar.

Monday's allegation in Arunachal

Arunachal Pradesh Congress president Bosiram Siram said Chinese troops have intruded 40 to 50 km into Upper Subansiri and that "the whole of Asaphila has come under its control", The Times of India reports. He said a Congress delegation visited border areas from August 26 to 29 and spoke to residents, and asked for an impartial investigation. Chief Minister Pema Khandu denied it, saying he did not believe any incursion was taking place. The Economic Times describes Siram's claims as allegations to be distinguished from independently established facts. No report read offers evidence for the 40 to 50 km figure.

Videos and posts shown to be false or old

• Lt Gen Girish Kalia: a video in which he appears to say China has taken control of Asaphila, Longju and Taksing Circle and that troops are denied supplies is a deepfake, the Army's fact-checking unit said on X, in a post that Newschecker dates to October 25, according to Hindustan Times. The Army said the clip used AI lip-syncing and voice cloning over footage of a press briefing by then Major General Kalia in Kupwara on October 27, 2023, about infiltration attempts across the Line of Control. Newschecker and The Quint reached the same conclusion with detection tools and the original agency footage.
• A second post: The Economic Times reports that Bihar Congress leader Ritu Choudhary shared two videos, and that the Army said the first, said to show Chinese vehicles entering Indian territory, showed commercial vehicles at the authorised trade point at Nathu La in Sikkim, while the second was the Kalia clip. It adds that Rijiju demanded an apology; Choudhary's response is not reported in the sources read.
• A clash video: a clip of soldiers pushing each other near barbed wire, shared as a fresh 2026 clash, is old footage; Organiser's fact-check says CNN reported on December 15, 2022 that it was filmed on September 28, 2021, according to a serving Indian military officer.

Where reports differ

• What Kapur confirmed: continuing "face-offs" at several locations (speech reports) against "routine operational preparedness" not tied to any incident (unnamed government sources, via IANS).
• Depth and nature of the stand-off: 6 to 7 km, with tents, from government sources to The Hindu; 40 to 50 km, from the state Congress chief; "armed clashes" for four months, from the Saamana editorial; no violence or casualties reported, per The Free Press Journal.
• Present state: Organiser's fact-check says reports described the situation as stable, while Kapur said the face-offs continue.

What is not yet known

• Where the face-offs are, how many there are, and whether they are tied to Asaphila.
• Whether the Ministry of Defence or the Army will give an account of them.
• Why the ITBP removed its video and whether it will comment.
• Whether the Army's June position, that reports of Chinese camps were incorrect, has changed.