ITBP chief confirms face-offs with Chinese troops at several places in Arunachal Pradesh

The Director General of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Shatrujeet Kapur, has confirmed that Indian border guards have faced off with Chinese troops at several locations in Arunachal Pradesh, and that the situation is continuing.

"In the past few days, a situation arose where face-off happened at several locations in Arunachal and it still continues," Kapur said on Thursday, 22 October, according to Outlook. He was speaking at the Himveer Samman Samaroh, the ITBP's annual awards ceremony, at its Central Training College in Alwar, Rajasthan. ThePrint described it as the first official confirmation of such incidents in the state.

The ITBP is the central armed police force that guards the India–China border, alongside the Indian Army.

What the ITBP chief said

According to ThePrint, Kapur:

• praised the force's newly raised Shaurya commando platoons for their work during the face-offs;
• said the ITBP's training wing has designed a course called "Strike" on new battle tactics, meant to avoid a situation like the 2020 Galwan clash;
• said every border battalion will get a drone platoon.

He did not give the number of locations, the dates of individual face-offs or troop positions, and no injuries were reported.

What the government said

Asked about the remarks at the weekly briefing on 23 October, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the situation in the border areas "gets disturbed from time to time" when Chinese forces depart from established patrolling patterns. He said both sides "continue to use existing diplomatic and military mechanisms to resolve outstanding issues", and that the two countries had agreed to discuss ways to better understand the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in some areas. He did not comment on the face-offs themselves.

The Defence Ministry's Annual Report 2025–26, released in September, said China had significantly reduced its troop deployment along the LAC in 2025, and that the Indian Army's deployment in all sectors was "robust, well-poised, and prepared to deal with any emerging contingency".

The opposition Congress party has questioned the government's silence on the situation in Arunachal Pradesh.

What is not confirmed

• No official statement says Indian territory has been lost or occupied. Claims on social media that Chinese troops set up camps several kilometres inside India's side of the LAC have not been independently confirmed.
• No official statement from the Indian Army on these incidents had been published at the time of writing.
• The viral videos are old. The fact-checking site Factly found that none of three widely shared "clash" videos shows the October 2026 face-offs: two were online by December 2025, and the third was filmed on 28 September 2021.

We will update this story if the Army, the Defence Ministry or the External Affairs Ministry says more.