India wants peace with China but not at cost of honour: Rajnath

Singh was addressing the 53rd raising day function of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police

Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said that India wants peace with China but that cannot come at the cost of honour.

"Humlog shanti chahte hai samman ki saath. Asamman ke saath shanti nahi ho sakti (We want peace with honour. Peace cannot come at the cost of honour," he said, referring to the recent border row with China.

"Pride is the ultimate accomplishment of a human being, of mine and yours," he said, addressing the 53rd raising day function of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) here, which guards the Sino-Indian border.

Singh said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear that New Delhi wants to maintain peaceful relations with all its neighbouring countries and wanted to resolve border issues peacefully.

"Our Prime Minister has told the Chinese President and requested him that if there is a dispute we should talk," he said.

The Home Minister said China often raises question over the border and even had raised objections when India wanted to improve border infrastructure within its own territory.

Referring to Pakistan, the Home Minister said the neighbouring country should stop firing on border posts and civilian areas.

He said Pakistan had fired upon the civilian areas along the border in Jammu and Kashmir just a day before Deepawali.

"When we get to know about ceasefire violations done by Pakistan or there is some dispute in the context of India-China border, we feel hurt and we feel angered."

"Pakistan fired on civilians even on the eve of Deepawali festival and they did not even spare our festival. Pakistan should be wary of this. I want to tell Pakistan to stop this continuous violation of ceasefire," he said.