New Delhi: Under the custody of China’s People’s Liberation Army of China (PLA), Miram Taron, the 17-year old hunter from the local Adi community, travelled across several hundred km of mountainous terrain before being handed over to the Indian Army on Thursday. While Taron was picked up by a PLA patrol party on January 18 from the Lungta Jor area in Arunachal Pradesh’s Upper Siang district while on a hunting trip, he was handed over to the Indian army on Thursday at the designated meeting point of Damai-Kibithu in Anjou district—nearly 1,000 km away.
On Thursday, Union law minister Kiren Rijiju, who hails from Arunachal, tweeted: “The Chinese PLA handed over the young boy from Arunachal Pradesh Shri Miram Taron to Indian Army at WACHA-DAMAI interaction point in Arunachal Pradesh today… Due procedures are being followed including the medical examination.”
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The minister also posted photos of the ‘handover’ where Taron is dressed in PPE suits in adherence to the COVID 19 protocol. Tarom will now undergo the mandatory quarantine period as a precautionary step for COVID-19 besides also being questioned by the Indian security establishment. The Damai border station of the PLA also believed to house a military intelligence establishment of the PLA’s ‘Second Department’ under the General Staff Department (GSD) of China’s Central Military Commission—lies about 2.5 km away from the Indian Army’s border outpost at Kibithu.
The GSD’s ‘Second Department is mandated with human intelligence (HUMINT), while the ‘Third Department’ and the ‘Fourth Department’ are mandated with technical reconnaissance (TECHINT) and electronic warfare (ELINT) responsibility although certain elements of these three departments are reported to have been moved to the PLA’s Strategic Support Force under a series of reforms. The reason why Taron was handed over at Kibithu-Damai—which is the designated border meeting point for the Indian Army’s Dimapur-based 3 Corps and the PLA—is that the place from where he was picked up in Upper Siang comes under the 3 Corps.
Earlier too, five Arunachali youth picked up by PLA from the higher reaches near the India-China border in Upper Subansiri district on September 2, 2020, were also handed over at the same place. From across Upper Siang, Tarom would have traveled across one of the most pristine and remote regions on earth with deep gorges, roaring mountain rivers and abundantly green surroundings which locals believe possess magical qualities. China refers to Arunachal Pradesh as part of ‘Southern Tibet’ and does not recognize India's sovereignty over the region.
