Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Friday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi when will India’s territory “occupied by China” be returned.

Gandhi made the comment in a tweet about the Arunachal Pradesh youth who was returned by the Chinese Army on Thursday, more than a week after he had gone missing.

“It comforts me to know that Miram Taron has been returned,” Gandhi wrote on Twitter. “But when will we get back India’s territory that has been occupied by China?”

On January 20, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Tapir Gao had claimed that the Chinese Army had abducted 17-year-old Taron from Indian territory. Gao, who represents Arunachal East in the Lok Sabha, had said that Taron had been abducted from Upper Siang district of the state on January 18.

After reports emerged about Taron going missing, Gandhi had said the government should fulfil its responsibility to bring him back.

“If there is a government, then fulfil your responsibility. Bring back Miram Taron!” he had said on Twitter.

Taron was handed over to the Indian Army at the Wacha-Damai interaction point in Arunachal Pradesh on Thursday.

India and China have been locked in a border standoff since their troops clashed in Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh in June 2020. Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in the clash. China had put the number of casualties on its side at four.

Since then, there have been several reports based on satellite image and claims made by locals about Chinese incursion and building of infrastructure in and around parts of Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Ladakh and Uttarakhand.

Gandhi, on several occasions, has criticised the Modi-led Union government’s handling of the standoff and has blamed it for “surrendering” India’s land to China.