Chandigarh: Defence minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday that India wants a solution to the border dispute with China through dialogue and asserted that the government would never allow the sanctity of borders to be violated.
The Modi government has made it clear to the forces that any unilateral action on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) should not be ignored, he said.
Singh was delivering virtually the third Balramji Dass Tandon Memorial Lecture organised by Panjab University on the issue of national security.
The Defence minister said there have been perception differences on the border with China. Despite this, there are some agreements, protocols which the armies of both countries follow to conduct patrols. Referring to the clashes in eastern Ladakh last year, Singh said Chinese forces had ignored the agreed protocols.
"We cannot allow the Chinese Army PLA to act on the LAC in a unilateral manner under any circumstances.
"That is what the Indian Army did that day in Galwan and bravely confronted the PLA soldiers and forced them to retreat," he said while terming it as a 'historic' incident.
India wants a solution to the border dispute with China through dialogue, the Defence minister said and asserted that the government will never compromise on issues of the "country's borders, its honour and self-respect".
"We will never allow the sanctity of borders to be violated," he said.
Recalling the Galwan incident, he said the bravery, valour and restraint shown by the Indian Army are incomparable and unparalleled.
In the first deadly clash in the border area in nearly five decades, 20 Indian soldiers were killed on June 15 last year in the Galwan Valley in fierce hand-to-hand combat with Chinese troops, triggering a large deployment of troops and heavy weaponry by both armies at the friction points in eastern Ladakh.
In February, China officially acknowledged that five Chinese military officers and soldiers were killed in the clashes with the Indian Army though it is widely believed that the death toll was higher.