China-India border dispute: five Indians freed by PLA after state newspaper calls them spies

‘India has from time to time used the tactic of sending people across the border to find out information,’ editor-in-chief of Global Times says

Five men were handed over to the Indian military at an undisclosed location at noon on Saturday, reports say

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India and China have been embroiled in a bitter dispute along their shared border for months. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 7:00pm, 12 Sep 2020Updated: 11:27pm, 12 Sep 2020

Five Indian men temporarily detained by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for crossing into Chinese territory were released on Saturday amid claims from a Chinese state newspaper that the men were spies.

Nationalist tabloid Global Times described the group as “undercover intelligence officers” and said they entered an area of southeast Tibet administered by Shannan, a prefecture-level city in the region. The article was based on comments made by its editor-in-chief, Hu Xijin, on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.

“India has from time to time used the tactic of sending people across the border to find out information, which is also a means used to nibble away at China-controlled territory,” Hu said, adding that the five men were “warned and educated” before being released.

The report did not say how the men were caught, but was published shortly before they were handed over to the Indian Army about noon on Saturday.

Indian Minister of State for Minority Affairs Kiren Rijiju said on Twitter on Friday that the PLA said via a military hotline that the five men, who had earlier been reported missing, had been found and would be handed over on Saturday “at a designated location”.